Fructose & obesity

Fructose intake induces a pattern of hormonal responses that may favour obesity.

Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, the University of California, Davis have discovered that drinking beverages containing fructose, induces a pattern of hormonal responses that may favor the development of obesity.

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Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar commonly used to sweeten soft drinks and other beverages. It is estimated that consumption of fructose has increased by 20-30 per cent over the past three decades, a rate of increase similar to that of obesity.

In the study, 12 normal-weight women ate standardized meals on two days. The meals contained the same number of calories and the same distribution of total carbohydrate, fat and protein. On one day the meals included a beverage sweetened with fructose. On the other day, the same beverage was sweetened with an equal amount of glucose, another naturally occurring sugar that is used by the body for energy.

Following meals accompanied by the fructose-sweetened beverage, circulating levels of insulin and leptin were decreased compared to when the women ate the same meals accompanied by the glucose-sweetened beverage.

Moreover, levels of ghrelin, a hormone thought to trigger appetite that normally declines following a meal decreased less after meals on the day the women drank the fructose-sweetened beverage. The fructose also resulted in a long-lasting increase of triglycerides, fatty molecules in the blood that are indicators of risk for cardiovascular disease.

"Fructose consumption results in a metabolic profile of hormones which would be predicted to increase food intake, thereby contributing to obesity in susceptible populations," said Karen Teff, a physiologist at Monell and lead author of the study.

"Based on our previously published work, this metabolic profile resembles that of fat consumption. Thus, despite the fact that fructose is a sugar, metabolically the responses are similar to those seen following fat ingestion," Teff added.

According to co-author Dr. Peter Havel, "Although this short-term experiment provides important new data, additional research is needed to investigate the long-term impact of consuming fructose in humans, particularly its effects on lipid metabolism and on endocrine signals involved in body weight regulation."