Jun 7, 2006

Satisfying fructose

Posted in Science at 5:50 pm by David Bradley

Fructose is a sugar, it’s the sugar associated with fruit and honey in fact and has in the past been given the green light as being a more beneficial source of sugar than the processed sucrose we get in kilo bags from the supermarkets. However, research earlier this year suggested that fructose could be harmful to health because it makes you feel less sated by a meal containing high levels of this sugar than you would otherwise feel. Since fructose is added to lots of processed foods, this, the research suggests, might be yet another factor underpinning the nation’s health and leading to weight problems and metabolic syndrome.

I hadn’t seen this particular piece of research until a Sciencebase reader alerted me to it today, but it got me thinking. If fructose makes you feel less “full” than you actually are then this finding perhaps conflicts with the urgings of health authorities that we should eat more fruit and use natural sugars, such as honey. It would also explain how my wife can eat half a dozen pieces of fruit at a sitting without ever feeling full…

The original research was published in Nature Clinical Practice: Nephrology and a news write-up on the subject can be found here