Fructose Attacks: Minorities Hit Hardest

     Late breaking scientific data suggests that all sugars are not created equal.

     Professor of Biochemistry, Jean-Marc Schwarz and is team of nutritional busy-bodies wanted to know if fructose had the same effect as sucrose on the health of obese African American and Latino children.  Why Schwarz didn’t include white or Asian kids no one knows. 

Oh, fructose is the sugar found in most fruits, vegetables, and honey. It’s widely used in food and beverage (juice, soda, sports drinks and alcohol) manufacturing due to its low cost and ease of use. Sucrose is cane sugar in various forms like raw, brown, and table. (Table sugar is most commonly a combination of sucrose and fructose.)

     According to the study one of these is more likely linked to obesity in children: sugar that is processed from sugar cane or the sugar we get from fruits and vegetables?  See if you can guess… If you guessed the sucrose you’re wrong.  Man, I love that, any number of personal trainers just threw their iPads out the window.

     Team Schwarz’s research was recently presented at the Endocrine Society annual meeting in San Diego. They took obese Latino and African American kids ages from 9 to 18 and provided them with all their food for ten days.  Individual baseline food consumption was measured beforehand in order to ensure that each kid got the same type and amount of calories they normally eat.  In other words, they did not put the kids on any kind of diet or reduced their calorie intake at in any way.  The only difference was that fructose was replaced with sucrose. 

     After only ten days the conversion of sugar to fat declined 40% on average.  40 per cent, in terms of human physiology that’s huge.  Just as importantly, their liver fat decreased 20% and liver fat is a precursor to any number of serious health problems. 

     So, what might this mean to you and me?  Well, for starters we should be happy that we probably don’t need to starve ourselves in improve our health and lower our fat levels.  We’d be smart to avoid fructose as much as possible.  Minnesota Gastroenterology suggests that in addition to cutting out honey, sugary fruits, berries, and any foods whose ingredients chart lists fructose or high fructose corn syrup in their first five.  Alcohol sugars are among the worst, but who am I kidding? You’re not gonna quit that.

     Lucky for you, Pilates of La Jolla exclusively provides sugar-free workouts.

Well, that’s my two cents and it’s worth every penny,

Jake Holmes

Pilates of La Jolla