Fructose's Bad Rap

If I live to exceed one hundred years of age and people approach me to ask my secret to longevity I will be prepared to respond: "Lots of sugar in my tea, daily, enjoyably". So there.

The simple fact being that I have never, ever believed that sugar is a nutritional ill. It is an energy-boost, and tastes damn good, too. There are those who keep insisting that sugar in the diet is certain to pave the way to diabetes onset. And that's complete and utter nonsense. Anything - almost anything - taken in moderation is sensible and will do no harm.

Foodstuffs that are used immoderately, whether or not they are healthy foods, whole foods, unadulterated by additives like fat, sugar and salt in excess, are the culprit. Eating too much of anything will make anyone overweight. Becoming accustomed to disciplined eating, having as much as the body requires and not wolfing food down is a lifestyle choice of benefit.

Overeating, just like overdoing anything is a tried-and-true formula for disaster. People who eat more than they need for optimum energy and body maintenance are setting themselves up for health problems caused by obesity because they strain the body's natural resources. Our viscera suffer when surrounded by too much fat deposits.

And people who gain too much weight are placing too great a strain on their heart and their joints. And this has little to do with sugar consumption in and of itself. Sugar is an added-on item, not necessary, but adding zip when used in moderation, just like salt and pepper or herbs. An excess intake of water can overwhelm the body; excess anything can.

Now comes word from Canadian researchers from St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto with the discovery that fructose - normally added to soft drinks and processed foods - had no effect on weight, compared to diets providing similar calories from other carbohydrate sources.

"Fructose may not be to blame for obesity", explained the lead author of the study, Dr. John Sievenpiper, research fellow at St.Michael's and resident physician at McMaster University, Hamilton. "It may just be calories from any food source. Over-consumption is the issue".

Writing in the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Sievenpiper and co-authors found fructose had no effect on weight in comparison with diets providing a like number of calories using non-fructose carbohydrates. Adding fructose to a "usual" diet caused a consistent and strong weight increase, but "fructose, per se, is not the issue. It's calories."

Fructose is found naturally in fruit, vegetables and honey; a simple sugar which in combination with glucose forms sucrose, the basis of table sugar. High-fructose corn syrup the most common sweetener in commercial prepared foods has had a bad rap of late. It's used in soft drinks, chocolate bars, crackers, ketchup, sauces and buns. And too much of it is used in those items.

Fructose consumption has increased by over 25% over the past 30 years. And that is mostly because of convenience and junk foods, which are hardly "food" at all, but which attract the palate of consumers who use them all in excess of fundamentally nutritious whole foods, unadulterated by additives.

While the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded the study, the researchers have received unrestricted grants from the Coca-Cola Company for the funding of other research. Does that exempt them from a magnifying-glass-look at their findings? Possibly. Might Coca-Cola Company just be providing funding out of a ethical sense of social responsibility?

Uh, doubt it.