This U of California video about fructose is a must see. Fructose is a liver toxin.

[snagglepuss]

The youtube is a lecture given byRobert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology.


Do you know how Nixon was responsible for the dangerous increase in fructose consumption?


DO you know that a can of coke has 55 mg of SALT? The reason so much sugar is in coke is to cover the amount of salt. The reason for the salt is to increase thirst.

Do you know that infant formula is 43% frustose plus 10% sucrose. It's like giving a baby a milkshake. Worldwide there is an obseity epidemic amoung 6 MONTH olds.


I have always been interested in nutrition and weight loss. When I was diagnosed with high uric acid, I came across a number of studies about the problem of high fruit consumption

[HiPointDem]

1. what? a naturally-occuring sugar found in fruit & other plant foods eaten for thousands of years

= a liver toxin?

my, my.

[haikugal]

2. Went right over your head.

[HiPointDem]

23. that's the ticket.

[snagglepuss]

3. Fast forward to 42:00 minutes into the video for an indepth explanation of the bio-chemistry

of fructose metabolism.

[HiPointDem]

22. I know how fructose is metabolized, I have an advanced degree in the field, and it ain't a liver

toxin.

and as you think sodium is the same as salt, i trust my qualifications more than yours.

[snagglepuss]

51. Utter piffle. You haven't even watched the video.

[HiPointDem]

57. it's piffle that i have an advanced degree in the field? if you say so madame mindreader.

no, i didn't watch the video. not interested in wasting time on anyone who says fructose is a liver toxin, no matter how many MDs he has after his name. Plenty of docs out there pushing absolute garbage to the deluded for quick bucks.

if you overeat *anything* to the point of obesity you damage your liver -- & the damage is *indistinguishable* from the damage done by overconsumption of alcohol.

Despite having multiple causes, fatty liver can be considered a single disease that occurs worldwide in those with excessive alcohol intake and those who are obese (with or without effects of insulin resistance). The condition is also associated with other diseases that influence fat metabolism.[1] Morphologically, it is difficult to distinguish alcoholic FLD from nonalcoholic FLD, and both show microvesicular and macrovesicular fatty changes at different stages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_liver


Fructose is not a liver toxin. Period. Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in almost all plant foods.

[snagglepuss]

61. You have an advanced degree yet you quote wiki.

[HiPointDem]

62. you prefer i should quote from the scholarly paper wikipedia cited & quoted for the passage I

linked? here you go:

http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/290/5/G852.full

i linked wikipedia because i already knew about the link between fatty liver disease & obesity. the wikipedia article was an accessible summary.

i knew because i have an advanced degree in the field.

whereas you're prepared to believe statements like "30% of fructose is converted to fat" and "sodium = salt" or "fructose is metabolized like alcohol" without checking to see if it's actually true.

[KurtNYC]

4. Interesting stuff.

Last edited Mon Nov 12, 2012, 07:15 PM - Edit history (1)

I made it through 45 minutes. The start was a bit simplistic I thought because not every calorie that goes into your mouth gets absorbed and fats are much less likely to be absorbed that liquid sugars. I am wondering if taking fats out of foods reduced the satiation mechanism.

Here is why: through the Harvard nurse study they found out that drinking diet soda was linked to weight gain. Further study showed that artificial sweeteners broke the body's link between intake of sweets and satiation. In other words Diet Coke can increase your desired intake of food.

ETA: We are just beginning to understand mechanisms of satiation. And we now know that diet soft drinks actually contribute to weight gain and the Atkins diet works better than most...so the whole 'low fat' thing was either innocently wrong headed or a more coordinated scam.

[liberal_at_heart]

32. low fat is so that you will have a healthy heart

there are plenty of skinny people walking around with cholesterol clogging up their arteries. That of course doesn't mean you should deprive yourself because that never works but a well balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein with small amounts of fat for satiation is what works best for all of your organs.

[longship]

5. Food is BAD for you!!!!

Everybody who eats food eventually DIES!!!

Fructose is a NATURAL sugar from -- no surprises here -- fruit!

I always thought fruit was evil in its natural fructose-laden form. So, let me help everybody's health who may be worried about consuming that (apparently) evil fructose.

Crush the fruit and put in a large container along with another totally natural ingredient, yeast. Cover it and let the yeast consume all that evil fructose. After a while (a few weeks or so) all that evil natural sugar will be gone, and the yeast will be dead, too, and easily strained off.

The results will be a refreshing fruit drink with none of that horribly evil fructose.

[HiPointDem]

24. not only fruit -- also many vegetables, honey, and other miscellaneous plant foods. liver toxin my

skinny ass.

[man4allcats]

6. You don't have to be a great biochemist to see through this.

Wikipedia is sufficient. In summary, fructose in excess may be bad for your health. That doesn't mean you can't eat and enjoy an orange or a peach. The same argument holds true for alcohol. In excess, it may prove bad for your health. That doesn't mean drinking a glass of beer or some wine once in awhile will poison your system. All things in moderation including reports by scientists who are searching for grant money.

[KurtNYC]

7. Imagine for a moment if virtually all processed food and all beverages contained alcohol.

That is where we are with fructose right now. It IS excess.

[mrsadm]

14. Ah, no one considers Wikipedia to be proof of anything

[man4allcats]

34. Exactly my point.

Even a source as weak as Wikipedia (check the references in the article if you have a problem with Wikipedia itself) is sufficient to debunk this ludicrously overblown claim.

[HiPointDem]

43. but some doctor who's pushing a book is proof of something?

[Arugula Latte]

16. Makes sense. For tens of thousands of years of human evolution, people in non-tropical climates

got fruit relatively rarely -- only when it ripened in summer.

[snagglepuss]

18. Exactly. Before I got diagnosed with high uric acid I consumed a lot of fruit

especially after I started juicing and discovered how great freshly juiced apples are. Before juicing I also drank a lot of orange juice as I thought it was healthier than diet coke. Was I wrong. What I learnt when I was reading about uric acid is that both fructose and HFCS have the same affect on the liver and the body as explained in the video.

[HiPointDem]

25. fructose also found in honey and many/most vegetables. for example, carrots and corn also contain

fructose, as do spinach and onions.

so it doesn't make any sense at all.

[Arugula Latte]

30. Right, but the amount of fructose available to people compared to what we have now

was still quite small. Honey was probably a fairly rare treat, for example.

[HiPointDem]

35. and were corn, sweet potatoes, onions, and peppers also 'rare treats'? i heard that the south

american diet was based on them, and they all have more fructose per gram than some fruits.

the poster says fructose is a liver toxin, i.e. poisonous to the liver, causing lesions and physical damage ultimately rendering the liver non-functional.

it's just garbage.

[Arugula Latte]

37. Well, I was responding specifically to this post by man4allcats, about moderation:

In summary, fructose in excess may be bad for your health. That doesn't mean you can't eat and enjoy an orange or a peach. The same argument holds true for alcohol. In excess, it may prove bad for your health. That doesn't mean drinking a glass of beer or some wine once in awhile will poison your system. All things in moderation including reports by scientists who are searching for grant money.

It makes sense to me that something that we're consuming in far greater quantities than in our evolutionary history could be toxic in these elevated amounts.

Who knows, though, maybe I'm completely off base in my hunch.

[HiPointDem]

40. There are plenty of cultures that consumed an all-plant diet and did just fine, and in fact,

in the us vegetarians tend to be the healthiest populations. if fructose were toxic to the liver we would see lots of liver damage/failure in these populations. we don't.

over-consumption of *any* food substance is unhealthy and in some cases can cause death. including water. that doesn't mean the substance itself is toxic.

*Overeating* leading to obesity is 'toxic' to the liver, in fact:

What is nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)?

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) refers to a wide spectrum of liver diseases ranging from the most common, fatty liver (accumulation of fat in the liver, also known as steatosis), to Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH, fat in the liver causing liver inflammation), to cirrhosis (irreversible, advanced scarring of the liver as a result of chronic inflammation of the liver). All of the stages of Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease are now believed to be due to insulin resistance, a condition closely associated with obesity. In fact, the BMI correlates with the degree of liver damage, that is, the greater the BMI the greater the liver damage.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=46582

it doesn't matter if you eat too much protein, fat, or carb -- if you eat enough to get fat, you're damaging your liver.

there's nothing special about fructose, and there's plenty of studies that contradict the ones people like this guy pull out re fructose.

is it good to put tons of hfcs into everything? no. same as it's not good to put lots of table sugar into everything. forget about obsessing about fructose and eat less processed food.

The most economical explanation for increased obesity and all the physical problems associated with it is that total calories per capita have increased 19% since 1983, concurrent with steadily declining levels of physical activity.

but people wanna obsess about specific foods that are making them sick, or that will make them healthy. it's kind of like religious fanaticism.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Good stuff....

And I always find it interesting that a video like this can excite so many people who just happen to be sitting at their computer to defend HFCS with specious arguments that read like talking points.

[Brickbat]

9. Coke does not have 55 mg of salt; it has 55 mg of sodium. And the HFCS does not cover up the "taste"

of "salt."

[snagglepuss]

13. The difference between salt is sodium is neglible so I fail to see your

point and perhaps you can cite your sources for stating sugar doesn't mask the excessive amount of sodium.

[Brickbat]

21. Your utter lack of chemistry makes further discussion unlikely.

[snagglepuss]

49. Can't cite any sources eh?

[Brickbat]

54. You're seriously asking for sources that explain the difference between salt and sodium?

You're seriously asking for sources on the fact that HFCS can't be used as a masker for the "salty taste" of this pop, when simply looking at the ingredient label shows that the amount of salt in the pop is nil and the amount of sodium is very low?

I may rethink my unquestioning support for public schools if you actually went through a high school chemistry class and can't see what's hilariously wrong with what you're saying.

[HiPointDem]

26. salt = sodium & chloride in a 50/50 mix. sodium is not salt.

[Major Nikon]

28. Why don't you start with stating your source that supports your assertion about salt?

If you do the math, coke doesn't have that much sodium.

The RDI for sodium is 2400 mg per day based on a 2000 calorie per day diet. If you got all of your 2000 RDI calories from coke, you would have only consumed about 625 mg of sodium, which is way below the RDI for sodium.

There are many culinary reasons for adding salt. The reasons you cite just don't make sense.

[snagglepuss]

50. Obviously you didn't watch the video.

[Major Nikon]

52. I did watch the video

...although I just skipped to that part. What your claiming seems to go farther than his claim. Either way I don't agree with it. As I posted, the amount of salt in coke is not that high which certainly wouldn't cause the effect you're claiming. That effect would also be offset by the fact that caffeine is a diuretic. Salt makes sweet things taste sweeter, which is almost certainly the primary reason why soda manufacturers use it.

[hughee99]

39. It's actually 45mg of sodium, but that's still a decent bit for a 12 oz can. n/t

[Brickbat]

44. Actually, it's low for a serving size. If it were 35 mg, it would qualify for the "very low sodium

food" label.

[trotsky]

53. Quiet, you!

Facts have no place in a thread like this!

[Brickbat]

55. Time for me to start drinking, obviously...

...then maybe this thread will make more sense.

[xfundy]

10. Very interesting. Valuable, even.

Thanks for posting the video. I started it around 40:00 and watched it to the end.

[mrsadm]

11. Dr. Lustig will have a book ...

Coming out in December. I am a big fan of his, although fructose is only part of nutritional concerns. The food industry has a lot to answer for, IMHO.

[snagglepuss]

20. Thanks for the heads up. He clearly knows his stuff.

[cthulu2016]

12. I knew fruit was poisonous!

[snagglepuss]

15. You obviously didn't watch the video. He explains why whole fruit isn't the issue.

[Honeycombe8]

31. I didn't watch the video, but I think I can guess why whole fruit isn't bad for you.

Whole fruit has a lot of fiber.

[HiPointDem]

41. but it contains liver toxin!!!!!

[snagglepuss]

46. Save the snark for the lounge.

[GeorgeGist]

17. Table sugar = sucrose = glucose+fructose

[snagglepuss]

19. And your point is?

[HiPointDem]

27. don't eat vegetables either, or honey or sugar cane or stevia or any other plant food because

they all contain "liver toxin".

i guess if you'll have to stick to meat and saccharin to stay 'healthy'.

[liberal_at_heart]

29. high fructose corn syrup is bad for you

not fructose. If you have a high uric acid problem then yes you should check your levels and try not to consume too much food that will increase your levels, but not everyone has high uric acid levels.

[Major Nikon]

33. So is table sugar

The idea that HFCS is any worse for you than table sugar is dated and just doesn't hold water.

[liberal_at_heart]

36. yes, table sugar is bad for you

and so is high fructose corn syrup, but fructose by itself is not.

[HiPointDem]

42. fructose is always found 'by itself' once it enters the digestive system.

[snagglepuss]

47. That is a myth. All fructose works the same in the body. Whole fruit contains managable

amounts of fructose as well as fiber so whole fruit eaten in moderation is healthy. However many people don't eat whole fruit instead they opt for juices which overwhelm the liver with fructose and as Dr Lustig points out 30% of fructose is converted to fat.



The following is an excellent article on fructose.

http://www.steps.org.au/Health/Fructose-Sugar.html

[HiPointDem]

58. you're the one spreading 'myth' here. "30% of fructose is converted to fat" is BS. There's no

Last edited Wed Nov 14, 2012, 12:26 AM - Edit history (1)

steady percent of fructose that gets converted to fat. What gets converted to fat depends on the content of the meal and the state of the body that eats it.

Excess glucose can *also* be metabolized & stored in the liver, as can galactose. All sugars are to some degree metabolized in the liver, and the degree depends on the meal and the state of the body.

Fructose metabolism is *not* the same as alcohol metabolism.

Fructose can be converted to glycogen (storage form of sugar for quick energy release), fatty acids or amino acids (building blocks of protein).

[hughee99]

38. Interestingly, I happen to have a 12 oz can of Coke right here. It's 45mg of Sodium.

Not that THAT is a great improvement.

[RepublicansRZombies]

45. Could it be the genetically modified high fructose sugar that is the problem

When Monsanto splices in e-coli and roundup in our corn, I think those toxins in the high fructose corn sugar (which they have also found high levels of mercury) might do more damage than a piece of fruit?

GM foods are a liver toxin. They have been found to cause organ damage in Rats. They are damaging all of our organs, causing diabetes, cancers and who knows what else.

Perhaps it is time we stopped Rumsfeld's former company from ruining our food supply?

[snagglepuss]

48. Here is an informative article about fructose and how the body ie the liver

processes it.


snip

In nearly every way, fructose is metabolized the same way as ethanol, creating the same toxins in your body. When you consume fructose, one hundred percent of it goes directly to your liver to be metabolized. It overloads the liver. It depletes your liver cells of phosphates, produces uric acid which in turn raises blood pressure, produces high cholesterol (bad type), converts into fat cells (belly fat), causes insulin resistance (which leads to Type 2 diabetes) and fatty liver disease, Fructose metabolism is similar to a dose of ethanol (alcohol), a 120-calorie intake of fructose results in a large fraction (again, about 40 calories) that directly contributes to disease.

The point to take away is: consuming fructose is consuming fat. Fructose is not really a carbohydrate - a high fructose diet is a HIGH FAT diet. A high fat diet that creates a vicious cycle of consumption that won't turn itself off.

You can see by comparing the metabolism of fructose with the metabolism of ethanol that they are very similar. In fact, when you compare the metabolism of 150 calories of soda with 150 calories of beer (a 500ml can of each), about 90 calories reach the liver in either case. Fructose causes most of the same toxic effects as ethanol because both come from sugar fermentation.


http://www.steps.org.au/Health/Fructose-Sugar.html

[HiPointDem]

59. "In nearly every way, fructose is metabolized the same way as ethanol" = BULL

[Odin2005]

56. This is BS. This prof needs to take a remedial BioChem class.

[snagglepuss]

60. What a compelling argument.

Not.