Stephan Guyenet Weighs in on Fructose
It seems that I’m not the only
person who’s paying attention to David Despain’s “Evolving Health” blog. Evelyn, aka “Carbsane” has be
en raving about David’s interview with John Sievenpiper, that he wrote about in his article entitled “Fate of fructose: Interview with Dr. John Sievenpiper” (believe it or not), and now Stephan Guyenet has given his opinion on the whole “Fructose” thing.
Stephan Guyenet Weighs in on Fructose
Stephan posted an article on Monday May 8th 2012, called “How Bad is Fructose? David Despain Interviews Dr. John Sievenpiper“, that tells us what he thinks of John and David’s ideas on Fructose and Obesity.
“In my article “Is Sugar Fattening?“, I discussed a recent review paper on fructose, by Dr. John Sievenpiper and colleagues (1). It was the most recent of several review papers to conclude that fructose is probably not inherently fattening in humans, but that it can be fattening if it’s consumed to excess, due to the added calories. Dr. Sievenpiper and colleagues have also written other papers addressing the metabolic effects of fructose, which appear to be fairly minor unless it’s consumed to excess (2, 3, 4, 5).”
“not inherently fattening in humans” unless it is consumed to excess as part of a hyper caloric diet. Makes sense to me. Everything is really that way when you think logically……something can’t make you fat, if you’re not eating “too many” calories.
“Let me be clear that I feel strongly that concentrated added sugar is not healthy- and this isn’t exactly a controversial position. Sugar is one of the foods that consistently shows up right before metabolic/cardiovascular/dental health declines dramatically in industrializing cultures. But no one eats plain granulated sugar, because it doesn’t taste very good on its own. We add it to other foods, reducing nutritional value and increasing energy density, seductiveness, and palatability. However, none of those problems apply to whole fresh fruit, which is also rich in fructose and has been eaten in quantity by our ancestors for tens of millions of years. So is fructose really the main problem, or is it the overconsumption of low-nutrition refined foods in general*?”
Right. It’s hard to blame fructose, when the single most over-consumed “food” that contains fructose…..aside from the natural fructose in fruit…..is soft drinks that are sweetened with high-fructose corn-syrup…..which is a “low-nutrition refined food”.
Why not say that Obesity is the fault of “non-diet” soft drinks, instead of blaming it on fructose, which is merely an ingredient of those known-to-be-unhealthy drinks? Or maybe that another over-simplification, along the same lines as the “Fructose causes Obesity” statement?
Make sure you go to Stephan’s Whole Health Source blog, to read the rest of his article, and then maybe you can let us know what you think about fructose.
-
If you found “Stephan Guyenet Weights in on Fructose” useful, please click the ‘LIKE’ button below to share on Facebook. We also invite you to leave comments, and join the Paleo Diet News discussion!
Go to www.undergroundnutritionist.com, and download my 30-Day UN-Challenge eBook now……It’s a step-by-step guide to your personal health revolution.
Barry Cripps is a Paleo-based, Certified Nutrition and Wellness Consultant, who operates out of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
For more information please visit: www.undergroundnutritionist.com
