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Fructose-Sweetened
Beverages Linked to Heart Risks
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
April 23, 2009
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/health/23sugar.html?_r=2&ref=health
Some research has suggested that
consumption of high-fructose corn syrup,
used as a sweetener in a wide variety of
foods, may increase the risk of obesity
and heart disease. Now, a controlled and
randomized study has found that drinks
sweetened with fructose led to higher
blood levels of L.D.L, or "bad"
cholesterol, and triglycerides in
overweight test subjects, while drinks
sweetened with another sugar, glucose,
did not. Both L.D.L. and triglycerides
have
been linked to an increased risk of
cardiovascular disease.
The study was published online on Monday
in The Journal of Clinical
Investigation.
Researchers at the University of
California, Davis, assigned 32
overweight men and women, whose average
age was 55, to groups consuming either
fructose-sweetened or glucose-sweetened
drinks over a 10-week period. The
drinks, specially formulated for the
study, contained only pure fructose or
pure glucose.
For the first two weeks, the volunteers
lived in a clinical research center,
consuming a balanced diet high in
complex carbohydrates and undergoing
various blood tests and measurements of
body fat. This phase established
baseline measurements for the study.
As outpatients for the next two weeks,
the subjects ate their usual diets, plus
either fructose- or glucose-sweetened
drinks consisting of 25 percent of their
energy requirements. After returning to
the center for more tests, the
participants spent six more weeks as
outpatients on their usual diets, then
finally two more weeks in the clinic on
the high-carbohydrate diet while
drinking the sweetened beverages.
While outside the hospital, the
subjects’ diets were tracked with daily
phone calls, and compliance with
consumption of the drinks was measured
by urine tests.
The two groups had been matched for age,
weight, fasting triglyceride levels,
insulin concentrations, total
cholesterol and other factors. But by
the end of the study, the researchers
found, those participants consuming
fructose beverages had significantly
increased blood levels of triglycerides
and L.D.L., compared to those consuming
drinks sweetened with glucose.
Although there was a similar moderate
weight gain in both groups, the fructose
drinkers also had larger increases in
fat inside the abdomen, also associated
with an increased risk of cardiovascular
disease.
The study was intended only to learn
more about the metabolic impacts of
glucose and fructose consumption, the
authors noted, not the health effects of
high-fructose corn syrup, which is a
mixture of fructose and glucose. Table
sugar also contains both glucose and
fructose, as do many fruits and some
vegetables.
Dr. Peter J. Havel, the senior author
and a nutrition professor at the
University of California, Davis, said
that the findings “do not imply that
anyone should avoid fruit, which
contains only small amounts of fructose
and has other important nutritional
benefits.”
John S. White, a biochemist who has
published widely on nutritive sweeteners
and was not involved in this study, said
that the experimental setup did not
reproduce a real-life diet. The study
did not test high-fructose corn syrup,
he said, and judgments should not be
made about it from the findings.
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