Fruit sugar: an insidious sweetener

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Soda and cola, fruit juice and iced tea: they are all one thing above all else - nice and sweet. If you don't choose the light version, the liquid also flushes plenty of sugar through your throat: ordinary table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. The sugary drinks are risky: They endanger the heart, among other things.

Drinks sweetened with sugar make one thing above all, namely fat. The liquid calories are quickly absorbed by the body and hardly fill you up. They are therefore consumed in addition to normal meals.

Impending heart attack

Sipping a liquid sugar bomb or two a day increases your risk of a heart attack by 35 percent and your risk of stroke by 16 percent. This is shown by an overview study carried out by scientists working with Frank Hu from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. The risk of type 2 diabetes also increases for sugar-water drinkers. And by 26 percent.

Drinks containing sugar appear to be particularly tricky if the fructose content is high. Because sugar is by no means the same as sugar. Fruit sugar (fructose) is metabolized differently in the body than grape sugar (glucose). Normal table sugar consists of both equal parts: one molecule of fructose and one molecule of glucose. But often foods are also sweetened with pure corn syrup. Because it is cheaper - but also contains considerably more fructose.

Turned to fat

While glucose can be burned immediately by the body's cells, most of the fructose has to be processed in the liver. Larger amounts have an unfavorable effect on the fat and carbohydrate metabolism: Fructose promotes the formation of unfavorable blood fats such as LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. These in turn play a key role in the development of arteriosclerosis - and thus heart attacks and strokes.

In addition, the fructose promotes the storage of fat in the fat deposits of the body - and thus obesity and a non-alcohol-related fatty liver. Finally, it reduces the body's cells' sensitivity to insulin - a key mechanism in the development of type 2 diabetes. And then there is the increased uric acid level with fructose consumption: It can trigger painful gout attacks.

“A reduced consumption of sugary drinks alone can hardly solve the problem of the global obesity epidemic. Nevertheless, the limited consumption of such drinks is a simple and effective measure to control one's weight and prevent cardiovascular diseases, ”write Hu and colleagues.

Omnipresent fructose

Fructose - the name sounds natural and healthy at first. In fact, fructose is found in fruit or in maize, from which it is mainly obtained for industrial use. Consumed in its “natural packaging”, it goes hand in hand with vitamins, minerals and fiber - and the quantities consumed are manageable. It is different when it is added to artificially prepared foods. And so fructose can now be found in countless dairy products, baked goods, ready meals - including the hearty ones - but above all in juice and lemonades.

Germans also like sweet drinks: behind the mineral water, which according to a survey by the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy in 2015, more than 86 percent of Germans consume, 57 percent also drink fruit juices, 43 percent cola drinks and 23 percent lemonades. (cf)

Sources:

Vasanti S. Malik: Fructose and Cardiometabolic HealthWhat the Evidence From Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tells Us, Am Coll Cardiol. 2015; 66: 1615-1624. doi: 10.1016 / j.jacc.2015.08.025

George A Bray: How bad is fructose? On J Clin Nutr October 2007 vol. 86 no.4 895-896

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