Talk:Fructose

Plagiarism?

Interesting! I wrote/edited much of the text for Fructose in Wikipedia and can guarantee it was original. I sweated over it, trying to write it for general audience and added all the references. It is eerie to see one's work on another website, and can guarantee that mrsci.com are the plagiarists. Jwanderson 06:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to but in here but this article appears wholesale at

http://www.mrsci.com/Nutrition/Fructose.php

with a claim and reserve of copyright

looks like someone has been a naughty boy.

either this material has been plagiarised by mrsci or the author here or the author is reserving :rights at mrsci and releasing rights under the GFDL here.

Tut Tut

The Wikipedia concept is that the articles are open for use by anyone, no? While that website obviously shouldn't be claiming to have a copyright on something that they clearly have no right to, by posting your writing on wikipedia, you lose the copyright as well, as far as I understand. Baribeau 21:19, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm fairly certain the contributor retains ownership. They simply release the material under the GFDL. See Wikipedia:Copyrights for details. -- General Wesc 18:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Some comments on the comments below:

"What do you mean that some people react badly to fructose??"

The usual obvious complaint about fructose is when excess is consumed that is not absorbed in the small intestine... it leads to gas production in the bowels and water retention... bloating, flatulence and even diarrhea. See comments in Health Effects. This is well established and well known in the medical literature.

The health effects on people are profound and ubiquitous. Most age-related chronic diseases seem to be induced by fructose consumpion. I have studied this extensively.

"Why would fructose cause obesity if it's slower to digest than sacharose and also more sweeter for less calories, and also les likely to drive any addiction,"

The article cited on obesity was only one of many. Some poorly controlled human experiments of short duration have failed to show that fructose consumption contributes to obesity. Generally the experimental failure is to not monitor total fructose consumption, which is the relevant variable; not, for example, the fructose consumption from soda pop only (a well known study did this recently, but still showed a small fructose-obesity linkage).

Fructose causes obesity in two ways. First, fructose tips the leptin/ghrelin balance toward fat deposition as opposed to energy production. The upshot of this is that two people eating the same number of calories may have different results... the fructose eater will slowly become more obese than a non-fructose eater on the same caloric intake, other things being equal. This effect is little noted because nearly everyone eats significant fructose; and that is 'normal.' The hormonal balance shift caused by fructose is thought to be a genetic adaptation, since in most of human history high fructose foods would have been available primarily in the late summer through fall when one would preferentially be storing some fat for the winter.

Second, fructose doesn't induce the satiety response; yet it does contain calories. This, combined with the induced hormonal shift, typically results in overconsumption and obesity. Today, when high fructose foods are eaten year-round in unprecedented quantities, people are getting obese and suffering metabolic syndrome (aka syndrome X)and other age-related chronic diseases as a result.

This article shows a positive correlation for "corn syrup" consumption and poor association for fats or carbohydrates. This very positive association existed even though they chose "corn syrup" as an indicator of "refined carbohydrate" consumption. This reflects the popular notion that "refined carbohydrates" are damaging because of poor nutrition; and does not recognize the unique role of fructose in de-regulation of appetite and satiety responses. [1] Since their "corn syrup" category includes both high fructose corn syrup (usually containing 55% fructose and 45% glucose) and plain corn syrup (typically 95%+ glucose), the effect of fructose is understated. Based on the animal studies I have reviewed, the correlation would be even more positive for total fructose consumption, since fructose appears to be the root cause, and it's effects are masked by the categories chosen for this study.

"...and also les likely to drive any addiction,..."

I think this is just a gratuitous comment. If you have any references to support it I would be interested.

"because it's often absorbed with fruits it's associated with many highly valuable nutriments!"

That fructose is associated with other desirable nutrients, such as the anti-oxidants in/near the peel of fruits, doesn't make it a healthful molecule to eat. Even in fresh fruit, eaten whole, the antioxidants only partially offset the oxidants, such as hydrogen peroxide, produced as side-products from glycations passing through the various reactions as they become Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs. Fructose is especially unhealthful when dissociated from the peel and pulp, as in many fruit juice drinks. When eaten as table sugar (50% of sucrose is fructose when digested), or high fructose corn syrup, it is devoid of all nutrients except calories. When I was a child in the '40s and '50s, orange juice was a rare treat and we were strictly limited to one 4 oz glass at most a couple of times per week. Today, people think nothing of drinking a 20 oz serving of fruit juice daily which contains 50-60 grams of sugar (~15 teaspoonsful), delicious fresh fruits are available year round, and high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose are now used in the majority of commercial foods. "Sport" drinks didn't exist when I was young, and nobody was putting sugar in pizza or lasagna then, either. The rapid increase in high fructose corn syrup and fruit consumption during the '80s is now manifesting itself in poorer health for most. The point is that something in the American diet is screwing us up royally; and sugar consumption, and fructose in particular, appears to me to be the culprit. Actually, I wanted to put even more about the research in the article but haven't had time.

"it's slower to digest therefore the pancreatic function is not overloaded"

In actuality, fructose causes insulin resistance (a component of type II diabetes). This causes glucose levels to alway be higher than normal, increases the height of postprandial glucose peaks, and increases the glycation damage glucose causes. This is in addition to the seriously increased glycation activity of fructose, which sometimes predominates in cataracts. This is an indicator of lifetime glycation damage since the lens crystalline proteins are so long-lived.

"because fructose (the sugar of fruits in most cases) has been arround humans and ancestors for million of years... the human body is very much acclimated to fructose consumption, and fructose can be considered for historical reasons to be the main physiological sugar for oral consumption."

This statement is rather misleading. Glucose is the main sugar, and the primary fuel for our bodies. Fructose may be absent from the blood stream, but glucose is always there or you would be dead. Almost all fruits we consume today are modern cultivars with very much higher sugar content than the proto-fruits they were developed from and that we were evolved to eat. Think of it as crabapples vs Fuji appples. Any named varietal (Bartlett pears, Bing cherries, etc) is higher in sugar content than it's forebears. And, don't forget that 50% of sucrose is fructose. Free fructose is also found in fruits. Humans are adapted to eat fructose only in small quantities and it is rejected by the gut if glucose is not present.

• • • I disagree about today's fruit having much higher sugar content. For example, the red delicious apple has been developed to look good... not necessarily to taste good. Fruit that is picked and eaten directly from the tree is also likely to be sweeter than fruit that's been sitting at the grocery store/factory for weeks. Finally, fruits in tropical countries are amazingly sweet and I would bet you that they were also plentiful and easily available. Think of mangoes and papayas, for instance. And if you really think about it, how much longer have fruit (fructose) been around compared to sugar from sugar cane or beets?

The lengthy metabolic pathway is one example; it is digested through the liver like a toxin. When fructose finally reaches the gluconeogenesis stage, it can go to glucose, glycogen, cholesterol, or lipids. It preferentially goes to cholesterol. Reduction of fructose consumption typically lowers blood cholesterol significantly with no other changes. My personal cholesterol went from 235 mg/dl to 180, a drop of about 50 points, in 18 months.

• • • I would be curious if fructose consumption was all you reduced or if you reduced consumption of other foods as well. Also, since having a high HDL is actually good for you, I'm curious to know what your HDL/LDL ratio was before and after reduction of fructose, i.e. total cholesterol levels doesn't really tell us much.

The advent of high fructose corn syrup in the late '60s/early '70s as the lowest cost sweetener per dollar became a significant change in the American diet as it was widely implemented into commercial foods through the '80s. With the expected 15 year delay, for the results to start showing up, we now are seeing the detrimental health results of that increase in fructose consumption. Some public health experts are now concerned about a possible reduction in American average lifespan in spite of modern medical treatment advances.

A short list of recommended references:

1. Elliott SS, Keim NL, Stern JS, Teff K, Havel PJ. Fructose, weight gain, and the insulin resistance syndrome. Am J Clin Nutr 2002;76:911–22. [2]

2. International Obesity Task Force Website. August 2002: Internet: http://www.iotf.org/media/syrup.htm .

3. Teff K, Elliott S, Tschoep M, et al. Consuming high fructose meals reduces 24 hour plasma insulin and leptin concentrations, does not suppress circulating ghrelin, and increases postprandial and fasting triglycerides in women. Diabetes 2002;51(suppl):A408 (abstr).

4. Dills WL Jr. Protein fructosylation: fructose and the Maillard reaction. Am J Clin Nutr 1993;58(suppl):779S–87S.

5. Bell RC, Carlson JC, Storr KC, Herbert K, Sivak J. High-fructose feeding of streptozotocin-diabetic rats is associated with increased cataract formation and increased oxidative stress in the kidney. Br J Nutr 2000;84:575–82.

6. Levi B, Werman MJ. Long-term fructose consumption accelerates glycation and several age-related variables in male rats. J Nutr 1998; 128:1442–9.

7. Cohen JC, Schall R. Reassessing the effects of simple carbohydrates on the serum triglyceride responses to fat meals. Am J Clin Nutr 1988;48:1031–4.

8. Crapo PA, Kolterman OG, Henry RR. Metabolic consequence of two-week fructose feeding in diabetic subjects. Diabetes Care 1986; 9:111–9.

9. Bantle JP, Raatz SK, Thomas W, Georgopoulos A. Effects of dietary fructose on plasma lipids in healthy subjects. Am J Clin Nutr 2000; 72:1128–34.

10. Abraha A, Humphreys SM, Clark ML, Matthews DR, Frayn KN. Acute effect of fructose on postprandial lipaemia in diabetic and nondiabetic subjects. Br J Nutr 1998;80:169–75.

11. Jeppesen J, Chen YI, Zhou MY, Schaaf P, Coulston A, Reaven GM. Postprandial triglyceride and retinyl ester responses to oral fat: effects of fructose. Am J Clin Nutr 1995;61:787–91.

12. Havel PJ, Elliott S, Keim NL, Krauss RM, Teff K. Short-term and long-term consumption of high fructose, but not high glucose, diets increases postprandial triglycerides and apo-lipoprotein-B in women. J Invest Med 2003;52(suppl):S163 (abstr).

There are some traps in reading the literature: 1) glycosylation and glycation are often confused or used imprecisely. You must read syntax to determine what they really mean. 2) Corn syrup sometimes means high fructose corn syrup and sometimes plain old non-fructose corn syrup 3) Many early fructose-related studies used improper assay techniques for fructose vs glucose glycations and glycosylations that were off by up to several orders of magnitude. You must be aware which assay techniques are accurate and read the article to determine which were used. Also, often, no distinction between glucose glycations and fuctose glycations are made.

--Jwanderson 07:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)jwanderson

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What do you mean that some people react badly to fructose??

Full blown misguided views on health effects

I added a NPOV warning for the following reasons :

Full blown misguided studies/articles about health effects : Why would fructose cause obesity if it's slower to digest than sacharose and also more sweeter for less calories, and also les likely to drive any addiction, the study about obesity is absolutly ridiculous and should ne withdrawn from that page! And the other healt effect can be submited to the same considerations!

More considerations about health effect of fructose may be described as detrimental by the sugar industry because it makes huge profit on the addictive properties of glucose and sucrose that are often detrimental to the health because of poor mineral content, trigering insuline rush through hypo/hyper glycemia vicious cycles! In reallity fructose is much healtier than glucose and sucrose because :

- it's slower to digest therefore the pancreatic function is not overloaded, as a side effect it's very much tolerated by diabetic people! - because it's often absorbed with fruits it's associated with many highly valuable nutriments! - because fructose (the sugar of fruits in most cases) has been arround humans and ancestors for million of years (we know something about roots sugar just from industrial time) the human body is very much acclimated to fructose consumption, and fructose can be considered for historical reasons to be the main physiological sugar for oral consumption. - nowdays we eat about 100 times more sugar than our ancestors 200 years ago!

We recall here that huge profit are made from addictive substances, sucrose/glucose can easily become addictive with many consequences : diabetis, tooth decay, probably hyper-activity and some burst of violence actually the main recommendation for glucose absorbtion is before an intense burst of physical activity! Not everyday for most people.

Just because you don't agree with the article, it doesn't mean that it is biased. The linked study does not appear unscientific to me. If indeed a diet high in fructose leads to obesity in laboratory animals, and the same effect is considered likely in humans, then this is certainly worth mentioning in Wikipedia. --221.249.13.34 05:20, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree with previous poster, just because you don't agree doesn't mean it's not true! And as for that posted study, there actually was *another* one done with mice conducted by the University of Cincinnati just recently that apparently also supported the view that fructose for some reason fosters fat creation. Matter of fact it was all over the news here at one point. http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2005/07/25/daily43.html <-is the first thing I've found about it. I actually with some effort managed to track down the article where they published their findings, but it's locked down behind one of those lame 'you need a subscription to view this article' sites. The study apparently compared mice drinking water, a sucrose sweetened commercial drink, and a mix of water and fructose. They apparently were rather suprised that both the soft drink and fructose water drinking mice actually ate less food than the mice with water, and thus the caloric intake ended up about the same. However, the fructose water mice gained a signifigant amount of weight versus the soft drink and water mice, apparently. From things I've read, they apparently also suggested that the recent obesity epidemic was caused by the introduction of 'high fructose corn syrup' to drinks. The industry didn't like that, and from what I've read I gather they attacked the study methods as well as the fact that the 'fructose water' used pure fructose, whereas they do not. That's two studies now that indiciate that fructose *by itself* anyway can cause increased fat creation versus normal sucrose. The best thing in this instance is to remember to step back and look at all sides. The article already mentions the effects with diabetics, and in facts states that it is 'hypothesized' that it *might* cause obesity. I really, really don't see any NPOV Problems with this article, tell the truth. And the article *also* mentions that fructose is generally found 'in combination with sucrose and glucose.' I've heard, though not personally seen, that studies have been done which show that the addition of glucose vastly reduced this effect. However, the article is about fructose itself, and as the views you oppose are presented as mere supposition, I don't understand how there's a NPOV Problem. -Graptor

I'm going to remove the NPOV dispute, since I think it's based on ignorance. Aside from the fact that there are many well-done studies on the relationship between fructose and obesity, the OP is clearly misinformed about fructose, since, in fact, it is the major sugar used in foods today (in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup, HFC) by the "sugar industry" s/he lambasts. Graft 20:50, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Isn't glucose converted to fructose in glycolysis? So don't all human cells (actually all cells) use fructose, and not just those of the liver?

Structures of L Forms

I have removed these structures from the article because they seem incorrect to me. They are not mirror images of the α-D and β-D forms. The two "front-most" hydroxyls need to be "flipped". I think that the strucures shown are not fructose at all, but some other ketohexose.

File:Alpha-L-Fructose-structure.png

Supposed α-L-Fructose

Supposed β-L-Fructose

Oops, forgot to sign. Josh Cherry 00:23, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that, and taking a long time to fix it. I've updated the images, can they be included now? [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 08:16, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They look right to me now. Josh Cherry 01:18, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

These graphics are still incorrect. In each graphic, where ever CH3 or H3C is found, it should be CH2 or H2C respectively. Thank you for placing these graphics online.... but they need to be accurate before they are borrowed and end up on websites and student papers all over the world. User: Don DeWitt 1 Nov 2004

The same problem exists for the D-isomers. I have created revised images in Photoshop but I do not know how to upload them. The original author may wish to make these corrections and obviously knows how to do it. User: Don DeWitt 1 Nov 2004

One last thought. It would be very helpful if the carbons were numbered in all the graphics. User: Don DeWitt 1 Nov 2004

Only the ring-carbons? -69.47.186.226 07:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

"Fructose is a blood sugar"?

I'm a bit confused by the following sentence:

Fructose is a simple sugar (monosaccharide) found in many foods and one of the three most important blood sugars along with glucose and galactose.

According to the article about blood sugar, the term blood sugar is only used to refer to the glycose levels in the blood. It's true that fructose and galactose can be converted into glycose, but does that really make them blood sugars themselves? If not, I think the above sentence should be rewritten, but if that's really the case, I would say the blood sugar article needs an update. - Wintran 03:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Erm... "blood sugar" as a medical term refers to glucose, which means glucose levels are used to meter the amount of sugar in the blood, but there are nevertheless other sugars present in the blood. Graft 04:09, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Do you think we can clarify this in the blood sugar article, that the term can also be used to refer to other types of less prominent sugars in the blood, and not just glucose? - Wintran 12:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll try and clarify it. Graft 22:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, looks much better now. - Wintran 00:03, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Are Fructose and Levulose different?

This is in response to a statement in a Mercola article where he states "CSPI has been on a campaign to lump all sugars together, claiming, wrongly, that corn-derived fructose is no different than the levulose that comes from fruit." Any idea what he's getting on about? I thought fruits had fructose, not levulose, it'd make sense if they're the same but why use different terms... is the fructose in corn syrup not levulose? -Tyciol 10:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Uh. Possibly he's referring to the fact that corn syrup is mostly D-fructose whereas fruits are mostly L-fructose (levulose). I'm not even sure if this is true, it's just a hunch I have. Also I don't know whether this has any physiological implications. Graft 15:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe that levulose is actually D-fructose. The reason that the name begins with the letter "l" is that Levulose was named using the d/l classification of Chrirality, not D/L. This is a bit confusing, see the Chirality article for an explanation of the difference between d/l vs. D/L. The isomer of fructose found in fruits will be the same the one that can be metabolized by humans (D-fructose), so the terms levulose and fructose should be synonymous in this context.

(d,l) versus D,L is only confusing because (d,l), while still widely used, is basically archaic. The (d,l) (dextrorotatory versus levorotatory) system is the exact same as the (+ -) system, and whereas d and l don't mean much to people who don't speak Latin, + and - clearly indicate the sign on the optical rotation of the molecule. Chemists really ought to use (+) and (-) exclusively.

So, in case anyone reading this thread is confused by Graft's post, dextrose (glucose) was so named because of its dextrorotatory nature, wile levulose (fructose) was so named because of its levorotatory nature. That makes glucose (+), and fructose (-). The only molecule for which it is safe to assume that (d) implies D (and (l) implies L) is glyceraldehyde: this is the molecule whose (d,l) optical rotation properties define the D and L system. Long ago, (d)-glyceraldehyde was chosen to be D-glyceraldehyde, and (l)-glyceraldehyde was chosen to be L-glyceraldehyde. All other molecules are then defined as D or L depending on which enantiomer of glyceraldehyde they resemble. This says nothing about a molecule's optical rotation (its (d,l) configuration), which must be determined experimentally. Even typing this is, at times, confusing--yet more reason why (d,l) should be abandoned in favor of the more informative and unambiguous (+,-) system.

As far as the original question goes, common usage of the words "fructose" and "levulose" almost always refers to D-fructose--so yes, in short, they are the same. L-fructose is a far less important molecule, and therefore it is always referred to by its full name. Another thing to remember is that, 99% of the time, dietary sugars are D, not L. The human body cannot metabolize L-sugars. -128.101.53.195 07:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Which form is the most common?

Can anyone tell me which form is the most common? I will then use that one as the base for an info table. Ryan Jones 20:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The quick answer is that the D isomer is the more common (natural) enantiomer. The tricky part is that it exists as an equillibrium mixture of open chain, pyranose and furanose forms - and each of the ring forms exist as mixtures of alpha and beta anomers. --Ed (Edgar181) 20:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, does anyone know the equilibrium concentrations, at least of the open-chain versus furanose forms? -69.47.186.226 07:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Reference for more about metabolism

Removing the following from the article:

" Articles

Carbohydrates and Increases in Obesity: Does the Type of Carbohydrate Make a Difference? Judith Wylie-Rosett[3]

For more details about fructose metabolism see: * Horn, R., [4] "

May be useful when expanding the article. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:55, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Fructose for the hypoglycemic?

From the article:

Fructose is often recommended for, and consumed by, people with diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia...

Why would fructose be recommended for those with hypoglycemia? Shouldn't that be hyperglycemia? Cburnett 18:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Hyper is too much, hypo is too little. Too little sugar (hypoglycemia) means you'd need more. kdepa 1 December 2006

Health effects ?

I can't beleive that a natural ingredient of fruits be THAT bad for our health... Would Fructose be supposedly bad because it is either "refined" like in white sugar, or manufactured like in HFCS, and therefore it lacks the necessary enzimes that might be present in unrefined sugar and fruits ? User_talk:_dhrm77

I agree, the health effects section seems very biased to me, with some unclear sources. - Wintran ^(talk) 00:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

What I meant to say is : Why is it that the fructose contained in fruits is good for us, but not the pure concentration that might be used as a sweetener ? Is is a question of quantity ? A question of missing enzimes/minerals/vitamins ? or is it something else ? User_talk:_dhrm77

Well, because of the lack of neutrality in this article it feels to me like it draws the conclusion that fruits are bad, because fructose itself is bad. However, I agree with you that there are differences between fructose concentrations and natural fruits. For example, most (all?) fruits contain both glucose and fructose, so they aren't subject to the absorbation problems mentioned as a negative health effect.

Regarding obesity problems it definitely seems more a quantity problem than quality. Overeating can be caused by any type of food and I've yet to see a research showing a clear connection between fructose and obesity that cannot be seen in other sugars that contain equal amounts of calories. - Wintran ^(talk) 13:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Please get over the idea that anything natural is also good for you or even safe! Uranium is a naturally-occurring substance. Want to eat some?

Umm...natural behavior probably is good for you. That's the point of natural selection. Compare the number of species whose diet includes uranium to the number of species whose diet includes fruit. -69.47.186.226 07:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

---

fructose free diet

Is it posible to have a fructose free diet... ?

You mean as a monosaccaride or completely absent i.e. no sucrose too? David D. (Talk) 20:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Excessive

Some demonizing in the "Health Effects" section, comparatively to other sugars gives a flawed and excessive view of the negative effects.A non-biased revision would be in order.-Thomas — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tdonner (talk • contribs)

im no expert, or anything like it, and i dont know much about the subject either to be honest. But, that artical did look like it was focused a lot on the negitive effects of the fructose.

I think listing ALL health effects of fructose in the "Health Effects" section would be beneficial. i.e. saying what will happen if no fructose is present in the diet, how it differs from other sugars, etc. Not just the negative health effects of overconsumption.

Why do you only present the furanose form?

Why do you only present the pyranose form of fructose with this page? It's a common trend among organic and biochemistry texts to exclude the pyranose form of fructose. The funny thing is, the pyranose form is lower in energy, and also the major form of fructose that is found in nature. Here are a few references in case you're interested. You really should include it in your discussion that you've sweated so much over.

P. Dais, A.S. Perlin, Car Res, 169 (1987) 159-169 W. Funcke, C. Vonn Sonntag, C. Triantaphylides, Car Res, 75 (1979) 305-309 C. Luu, A.M. Meffrov-Biget, D.V. Luu, Car Res, 81 (1980) 213-223 J. Baran, H. Ratajczak, E.T.G. Lutz, N. Verhaugh, H.J. Luinge, J.H. van der Maas, J. Mol Struc, 326 (1994) 109-122 S. Söderholm, Y. H. Roos, N. Meinander, M. Hotokka, J. Raman Spec, 30 (1999) 1009-1018 J.A. Kanters, G. Roelofsen, B.P. Alblas, I. Meinders, Acta Cryst, B33 (1977) 665-672 S. Takagi, G.A. Jeffrey, Acta Cryst, B33 (1977) 3510-3515 A.D. French, J Plant Physiol, 134 (1989) 125-136 A.D. French, V. Tran, Biopoly, 29 (1990) 1599-1611 S. Cerrini, V.M. Coiro, D. Lamba, Car Res, 147 (1986) 183-190 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.190.76.112 (talk • contribs)

Maybe you could add something appropriate? This is no ones article but a collbaorative project David D. (Talk) 13:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Fruits a bad rep?

This article gives fruits a bad rep. I have never heard of anyone having a destroyed liver on eating too many apples...and here this article states that rats have cirrhosis by eating too much fructose? BS. The article even fails to mention that, even if it is true that fructose does damage, fruits have a lot of phytochemicals and antioxidants that offsets the effects of pure fructose (which cannot be absorbed on its own). Either the bias is there or the one who made this article didn't do enough adequete research. Bellybutton Lint 10:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Fructose: not fruit

I think this article is right on. The article is seems to be talking about fructose in and of itself not in fruits. What I mean is this. The article is not saying fruits are bad for you because their primary sugar is fructose, because their are obviously alot of great benefits to fruit. Fructose itself, is not the greatest for you and this is based primarily on research into very concentrated forms of the sugar, mainly, high-fructose corn syrup, which in my opinion is what the article is talking about when it bad mouths fructose. They should make that distinction though. They probably know that most people get alot more fructose from high fructose corn syrup than they do from fruit.

Agree with this article

Actually I would say fruit is the worse, especially sweet fruit. It took me a long time to figure out it wasnt the wheat or dairy that was making me feel ill or hypoglycemic, but the oranges and raisins. Since getting rid of high fructose foods (getting rid of hfcs soda alone made little difference), I'm feeling much better. My doctor cannot believe the radical change in my lab numbers. No big loss - vegetables are far more nutritious than fruits anyway.

Maybe there is more to the apple in the garden of eden story than meets the eye.

Thanks for the anecdote, fruits give you a belly ache.

- Fruits don't give me a belly ache - they give me profound fatigue, hypoglycemia and an out of control appetite.

I like where you are going with the Eden story though; it wasn't about trust and obedience, God was just looking out for Adam and Eve's blood sugar levels. Vegetables are far more nutritious? Is that a fact? As far as nutritional value goes, I would put pomegranates, bannanas, and blueberries against cucumbers, corn, and soybeans any day. Niubrad 23:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You just compared fruit to fruit. :-) -- General Wesc 19:00, 29 April

Yeah and try comparing any of those teeth rotters to something like collard greens or heck even potatoes.

That's another thing with fructose - it destroys teeth and gums very quickly. Just visit a group of fruitarians or let a baby sit with apple juice in its bottle overnight to see this effect.

It's All How you Look At It

I believe that you should have things in moderation. It's not good to have too much or too little of anything considered as healthy foods. If you you eat too many carrots, your skin tone turns orange. If you don't consume enough dairy products, your bones become weak. Fruits have their good qualities and their bad qualities, so balance your consumption to make up for the negative aspects, and you'll be right as rain.

Effects of Fructose vs Fruit

Presumably the article pertains to pure fructose, and is not a discussion of the effects of fruit. It would be very unlikely that by eating fruits one could develop obesity or insulin resistance. Because fruits contain a plethora of disease-fighting compounds, including ones that decrease the risk of obesity, insulin resistance, heart disease, constipation, age-related macular degeneration, etc, the American Heart Association et al is always recommending eating more of them! This article needs to strengthen the distinction between fructose and fructose consumed in the form of fruit. The chemical is the same, but the long-term effects (and levels of exposure) are far different. -Muugokszhiion 18:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Additionally it is very rare for anyone to eat pure fructose. It is a sweetener used in other foods. Often it only makes up a portion of sugar contained in foods. Any study that doesn't directly deal with the actual eating habits of humans could be considered irrelevant. All animals metabolize foods differently and have different body compositions including fat reserves. Many human foods will make other animals obese or sick. In the same way the foods eaten by other animals may cause obesity or other illnesses in humans. Often scientific findings are based on statistical information and customize experiments, both of which can be manipulated to provide a desired result. This is why there are so many conflicting studies on all sorts of subject matter. Science is an ongoing study of the world around us and ever evolving. Science has a tradition of proving previous findings wrongs. What is found to be conclusive now, is often disproved tomorrow.

One certainty is most studies on this subject are funded for economic reasons. Often the studies are funded by people who sell fructose or their competitors. In addition many studies are used to sell books or push ideologies. Only by taking a careful look at all the scientific findings and the motivations behind all the studies can we make any sort of valid assessment of the health affects of Fructose. I assume most of us don't have the time, the scientific expertise or access to all the information to form any relevant opinions.

To that end lets all relax a little about the health effects of Fructose. It's not toxic, it's been around for forever, there is no conclusive findings showing fructose in any of it's form has caused any illnesses in humans. What one studies proves another study disproves. As many studies tout the health benefits of Fructose as raged about the possible downside of fructose. Lets chill with the agenda driven contributions. This article is about fructose a naturally existing compound that we have eaten since early man. Yes it is a component of processed food, but then again I have yet to find a Tofu tree, a cheese plant of a river of beer. We all eat processed foods everyday, it is one of the reasons we live so long and do so much. Do you really want to spend all day walking through the woods eating berries and grubs?

I have nothing wrong with taking a critical look at any subject matter, but this is not a place to push any agenda. If you want to preach from a soap box about the evils of fructose, get a blog or join one of the many online forums.Mantion 00:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Major mistake: Fructose is NOT a reducing sugar

Glucose + DNS -> Gluconic Acid + reduced DNS

Fructose + DNS -> Fructose + DNS

Glucose has an aldehyde group and, as such, it can be oxidized to a carboxyl group. Fructose however, is a ketone, and ketones just don't oxidize, no matter how hard you try.

[Edit: The articles here confused me.. They all say that fructose is a reducing sugar, but that goes against all that I've learned at the University and from books. I researched a little more on the web and I came up with an explanation for this. Ketones can be oxidized but they are destroyed in the process.

"Because ketones don't have that particular hydrogen atom, they are resistant to oxidation. Only very strong oxidising agents like potassium manganate(VII) solution (potassium permanganate solution) oxidise ketones - and they do it in a destructive way, breaking carbon-carbon bonds." http://members.aol.com/logan20/ald_rx.html

In organic systems, such as our body, from what I know, their oxidation is close to impossible.

Please correct me if I'm wrong! I'll ask my teachers this on Monday and will correct all the pages so that it is acurate.

]

Best regards!

Jp-rodrigues 15:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Good Luck buddy, you will need it. You seem to think that logic, scientific reasoning and a complete understanding of the subject matter will help you fix this article. Unfortunately you are wrong. No matter how right you are, or how hard you try, you are up against a force of ignorance you will never be able to defeat. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. If you spent your entire life studying the subject and argue your case till your dieing breath, you will accomplish very little. It seems that one political view has decided fructose as bad. I have no idea how or why this happened, but that is their view and they are dead set to protect it. The reader must come away with the understanding that fructose is bad. That is the goal of this article. It is sad, I think that we should take a fair look at it, but that won't happen here. Good luck, fight the good fight. If you start getting insulted just know that you are right and give up. They will just ignore you or insult you more.Mantion 22:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)