Fructose (HFCS or Sucrose) is POISON. Here's why.

[ShackAttack12]

Having studied biochemistry in college, I have a vested interest in how chemicals are metabolized in the human body. Regardless of whether or not you have studied biochemistry, you should have a vested interest in it as well because, after all, you are what you eat. When I began studying fructose, in high fructose corn syrup or sucrose forms (Sucrose = Glucose + Fructose), I came to the realization that we are being legally poisoned through our food industry, as well as manipulated to consume more food than we really need.

Let me paint a simple picture for you.

-Ethanol, a carbohydrate found in 100% of the alcoholic beverages that you consume, is considered toxic by the FDA. It has negative impacts on the function of many organs in your body. Your brain receives signals that ethanol is present. and through its metabolism produces that buzz you feel after drinking alcohol. This is the reason alcohol is highly taxed and has consumption limits, to prevent you from readily consuming it.
-Fructose, also a carbohydrate, is metabolized very similarly to ethanol and has the same negative effects to your organs, except your brain can not detect fructose in your body, and thus you do not "feel" the buzz from fructose. This is ONE of the reasons the FDA does not regulate your consumption. It's a silent alcohol, a silent toxin.

If you want more details on the subject, I urge you to sit and watch this presentation by Dr Robert Lustig on how fructose is silently poisoning us. This presentation provides you with all the information you need in order to make an informed and educated decision about your diet.



tl;dr Fructose is toxic and is silently destroying our health.

[The Conman]

This Snapple Peach Tea I'm drinking has like, 39g of sugar. Is sugar okay? I remember reading about Sucrose and stuff in Anatomy and Physiology, but not the specifics.

[DJ99X]

Sugar is sucrose

It's pretty hard to avoid consuming fructose. Of course, it is possible to reduce consumption. I've been considering switching from processed sugar to stevia for its higher sweetening strength, with lower energy content. Ever dealt with Stevia shack?

[The Conman]

God dammit how didn't I remember that.

[The Conman]

Also, I just saw this on reddit.

[HeintzKetchup]

:/ I love fructose. Yolo.

[Shadow]

Might want to check these too while you're at it Shack.



The rest of the parts for this can be found on youtube.



This is also a good read.

[ShackAttack12]

Sugar is sucrose

It's pretty hard to avoid consuming fructose. Of course, it is possible to reduce consumption. I've been considering switching from processed sugar to stevia for its higher sweetening strength, with lower energy content. Ever dealt with Stevia shack?

The thing is, fructose is naturally found in fruit. From an evolutionary standpoint it was probably more attractive for animals, and animals that ate the fruits most likely developed a liking for it. Basically a way for the plants to make sure the animals kept eating it's fruit, so that it would spread the plant's seeds and have a better chance of the plant reproducing. Plants are fricken smart.

Consuming fructose, while toxic in any form, is much LESS toxic when consumed through raw fruits because fruits contain high levels of FIBER. Fiber is the key to processing any carbohydrate in terms of preventing fat production and encouraging serum triggers that crate insulin responses as well as making your brain feel full (sounds funny?), and you really can't have enough of it.

Stevia is a carbohydrate, and in fact is comprised of slightly modified glucose molecules that enables them to bind together. That is part of the reason your body perceives it as being up to 250x sweeter than table sugar. The great thing about Stevia is that it does not block fullness signals to the brain, and thus it does not encourage you to eat more. Also, it is virtually non-caloric vs sucrose which is 3.5 calories per gram. I've read reviewed articles that claim replacing sucrose with stevia (or also aspartame) reduces your bodies daily caloric requirement (about 8% or so) compared to sucrose, but that's because high sucrose consumption forces your body to want more calories. The fact of the matter is that too much sweetener of any kind is NOT GOOD FOR YOU. But stevia and aspartame seem like decent replacements for sucrose, at least so far. I have been searching for more in depth articles regarding the biochemical metabolism of stevia, but have yet to find one detailing it.

[DK662]

Great info here.

I can say from my experience how bad that stuff is for ya. Been a 1 a day soda drinker since I was a kid. I have always been a relatively skinny guy at 5'11 and about 175, in good shape and always active with sports/working out.
In 2008 I completely quit soda and dropped 10 pounds in 2 months! Plus I noticed my energy level on the track (and other sports) have drastically improved.

Got my wife to quit completely and she was able to drop 5 pounds and now has a perfectly slender body she has always been working so hard for.

Stuff is horrible for ya.

With

[The Conman]

Aren't glucose and fructose the primary sources of energy in your body? So fructose is necessary for functioning, but you just don't want a lot of it, and glucose is healthier?

[Shadow]

Nope. The priority for the body to burn carbohydrates comes from the fact that excess blood sugar is toxic. One has about a teaspoonful of sugar circulating around in the blood at the normal levels. Liver stores 100-200g of glycogen(ie sugar) and muscles about 100g IIRC. Both storages are accessed only at all-out very high intensity physical exertion and then get used up as fuel for the muscles. Anything else gets burned up by the body or turned into fat.

There are a few parts in the brain that require glucose and cannot use alternate fuels but that's why our bodies have a process called gluconeogenesis where the body transforms either protein or fat into glucose. You can not only survive, but thrive with a low/zero carb diet indefinitely.

[Axle McOctane]

HFCS is more economical because it is the sweetest-tasting carbohydrate and the cheapest to put in drinks, snacks etc...

It is great for the diabetes industry as well.

If you really want to get pissed off, learn about GMO foods (and how these sterilizing, crop-infecting foods are nearly impossible to avoid in USA and endanger the entire biosphere of the planet)

and how floride, first used in tap water in concentration camps and justified to help improve people's teeth, is also very difficult to avoid in tap and bottled waters.

[Ih8Hondas]

-Ethanol, a carbohydrate found in 100% of the alcoholic beverages that you consume, is considered toxic

Hence the terms "inTOXICated" and "alcohol POISONING".

I'll gladly keep consuming my HFCS. Food is already expensive enough. Only the wealthy would be able to afford to feed themselves if it were outlawed or taxed to try and curb obesity.

[Shadow]

Bump, methinks at least Shack will find these interesting to read/watch.

"Heart Disease and Molecular Degeneration" by Chris Masterjohn
Lecture slides

ABSTRACT: When researchers first produced atherosclerosis in rabbits by feeding them cholesterol, they argued that atherosclerosis was of an "infiltrative" rather than "degenerative" character. That is, cholesterol was so abundant that it infiltrated the blood vessel wall. Over the decades it has become clear, however, that atherosclerosis is an attempt to protect the lining of the blood vessel from toxic waste generated by the degeneration of vulnerable lipids. The process of molecular degeneration can be likened to breaking glass, and the formation of atherosclerosis can be likened to the process of cleaning up the broken shards. The danger is not gone forever, though, because these toxic waste management sites (or barrels of broken glass) can eventually burst and spill their contents into the blood, leading to clotting, oxygen starvation, and the death of local tissue that can result in a heart attack or stroke. The key to preventing heart disease according to the new paradigm is preventing the molecular degeneration in the first place. Understanding this will help us achieve the protection from heart disease that our ancestors had.

9-part blog series of cholesterol starting from the basics of what it is, role in the body and ends in its role in cardiovascular disease. Has a good amount of sources cited with a lot of them being very recent studies.

[ShackAttack12]

Bump, methinks at least Shack will find these interesting to read/watch.

"Heart Disease and Molecular Degeneration" by Chris Masterjohn
Lecture slides

ABSTRACT: When researchers first produced atherosclerosis in rabbits by feeding them cholesterol, they argued that atherosclerosis was of an "infiltrative" rather than "degenerative" character. That is, cholesterol was so abundant that it infiltrated the blood vessel wall. Over the decades it has become clear, however, that atherosclerosis is an attempt to protect the lining of the blood vessel from toxic waste generated by the degeneration of vulnerable lipids. The process of molecular degeneration can be likened to breaking glass, and the formation of atherosclerosis can be likened to the process of cleaning up the broken shards. The danger is not gone forever, though, because these toxic waste management sites (or barrels of broken glass) can eventually burst and spill their contents into the blood, leading to clotting, oxygen starvation, and the death of local tissue that can result in a heart attack or stroke. The key to preventing heart disease according to the new paradigm is preventing the molecular degeneration in the first place. Understanding this will help us achieve the protection from heart disease that our ancestors had.

9-part blog series of cholesterol starting from the basics of what it is, role in the body and ends in its role in cardiovascular disease. Has a good amount of sources cited with a lot of them being very recent studies.

I'm glad you brought up the topic of heart disease and cholesterol Shadow. I could go on and on about the complete lack of public education on the topic and how absolutely misled most people are. I've read many peer reviewed articles concluding that dietary cholesterol has little effect on your serum cholesterol unless you are a couch potato who only moves to grab another piece of chicken.

I also love the people that say eating fat will make you fat! There is such a huge lack of nutritional education, something you would think is unheard of this day in age.