Obesity and gout: acquittal for orange juice

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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For a long time, the glass of orange juice was the epitome of a healthy drink. But then the perception tipped: Because there is also plenty of fructose in orange juice. But does it actually make you fat and sick, as many suspect?

The sugar content of fruit juices can definitely keep up with that of sugar-sweetened lemonades. Orange juice, apple or pear juice, like Cola & Co., are therefore suspected of promoting obesity and diabetes.

In addition, fructose is the only carbohydrate that increases the uric acid concentration in the blood. If it crystallizes in the joints of people with a predisposition, they suffer a painful attack of gout.

Orange juice is not a health risk

German scientists have now been able to prove that orange juice - at least when consumed with meals - does not pose any health risks: neither in terms of weight, nor sugar metabolism, nor uric acid levels.

Prof. Reinhold Carle from the University of Hohenheim and Prof. Anja Bosy-Westphal from the Christian Albrechts University recruited 26 young, healthy men and women for their tests. Over a period of two weeks, the participants covered around 20 percent of their daily energy requirements either with 1 liter of decaffeinated cola or with 1.2 liters of industrially produced orange juice.

After 14 days, the test subjects went through a so-called washout phase, in which they renounced both drinks. Then the orange juice drinkers switched to cola for a week and vice versa.

Orange juice lowers uric acid levels

The result: “Even with this very high consumption, orange juice, unlike cola, did not impair the glucose metabolism. The uric acid level was even lowered significantly, ”says Bosy-Westphal. This means that the risk of diabetes did not increase and the risk of gout attacks actually decreased. “This could be due to the vitamin C absorption in the juice as well as to the flavonoids contained, especially hesperidin,” explains the nutritionist.

Does orange juice make you fat?

The second experiment was about the question of whether the high fruit juice consumption increases the body fat percentage. In fact, this was the case when participants drank the juice between meals. But if you consumed it in portions of 3 x 400 milliliters with the three main meals, the weight would remain unchanged. The reason: the subjects spontaneously adjusted their energy intake accordingly.

Researchers recommend a glass of juice a day

The researchers now recommend a glass of orange juice a day based on their results: "Orange juice is a valuable source of potassium, folic acid and vitamin C. It contains bioactive substances such as carotenoids and polyphenols with good bioavailability," says Carle. A glass of fruit juice for breakfast could replace one of the five daily servings of fruit and vegetables recommended by the German Nutrition Society.

When consumed in juice form, the transfer of vitamins and minerals apparently works even better than when you eat the fruit yourself. The human body absorbs the valuable ingredients of the orange much better from juice. This had already been shown in an earlier study by the University of Hohenheim.

Fruit juice is not a thirst quencher

The scientists would still not recommend liters of fruit juices to quench thirst, but this is not a common practice anyway: In contrast to lemonades, fruit juices are usually not consumed as thirst quenchers for in between. “The annual per capita consumption of orange juice in Germany is around 7.5 liters,” explains Carle. In comparison, ten times as much lemonade is drunk, namely 75 liters.

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