I couldn’t wait to go back to The States, not only for the incredible fresh oysters and Lobster on Cape Cod, fresh air and great beaches, but also to make sure it really is true and what I saw last time and read every day is fact…..the obesity epidemic. Why is this such a problem? Well, it is multi-factoral, I know, but one reason could be the enormous amounts of fructose they are consuming in the form of soda, processed food (especially so called diet food) and almost everything else which can be bought in a packet.
It is not the fructose from three fresh fruits which are a problem, the problem is the vast quantities which are consumed DAILY from corn syrup. It is a cheap alternative to sugar and it is in everything. Yes, it may be natural, but consuming 70kg a year per person is NOT natural.
Dr Lutsig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:
- After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
- Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
- The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
- Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
- When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat.
- Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.
One of the very important factors of The Metabolic Balance program is to ‘re program’ the metabolism and stimulate the hormone leptin, which prevents over eating.
Through avoiding fructose in the form of corn syrup and processed food, the following can be prevented:
- Insulin resistance and obesity
- High blood pressure
- Elevated triglycerides and LDL cholesterol
- Depletion of vitamins and minerals
- Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, gout and arthritis.
Take home message: ALWAYS read the labels and eat and drink like a cave man/woman.
Nutrition Redefined 