A new report, published today in Nature Metabolism, is shedding light on the distinct and underappreciated role of fructose in driving disease, separate from its role as a simple source of calories.
Researchers examine how common dietary sweeteners, including table sugar (sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup, impact human health. While both contain glucose and fructose, fructose has unique metabolic effects that may more directly contribute to obesity and related conditions.
"Fructose is not just another calorie," said Richard Johnson, MD, professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz and study lead author. "It acts as a metabolic signal that promotes fat production and storage in ways that differ fundamentally from glucose."
The report outlines how fructose metabolism bypasses key regulatory steps in the body's energy-processing pathways. This can lead to increased fat synthesis, depletion of cellular energy (ATP) and the production of compounds linked to metabolic dysfunction. Over time, these effects may contribute to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that includes obesity, insulin resistance and cardiovascular risk.
Importantly, the authors emphasize that fructose's impact extends beyond dietary intake alone. The body can also produce fructose internally from glucose, suggesting that its role in disease may be broader than previously recognized.
The findings come amid ongoing concern about rising rates of obesity and diabetes worldwide. Although some countries have seen declines in sugary beverage consumption, overall intake of "free sugars" remains above recommended levels in many regions and continues to increase in others.
While fructose may have once served an evolutionary purpose, helping the body store energy that can aid survival during times of food scarcity, the researchers argue that in today's environment of constant food availability, these same mechanisms now contribute to chronic disease.
"This review highlights fructose as a central player in metabolic health," said Johnson. "Understanding its unique biological effects is critical for developing more effective strategies to prevent and treat metabolic disease."
Journal Reference: Johnson, R.J., Lanaspa, M.A., Tolan, D.R. et al. Fructose: metabolic signal and modern hazard. Nat Metab (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-026-01506-y
(Score: 3, Funny) by chucky on Tuesday May 05, @12:35PM (5 children)
I always had the feeling that drinking those soft drinks with glucose-fructose syrup is dangerous. Switch to beer and you’ll be fine.
Oh wait…
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @12:52PM (4 children)
Everything in moderation.
I have started making "mint tea" - it's not "everybody's cuppa tea" but it's easy to make cold: buy (or grow) a package of mint, rinse, store in a pitcher of water in the refrigerator: mint tea. Actually, the first few days it's clear mint water, then the leaves start to oxidize and it becomes more of a tea. 2-3 gallons of flavored water per batch of leaves. Zero calories, reasonable flavor.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by chucky on Tuesday May 05, @08:24PM (3 children)
Why was this modded off-topic? People drink the sweet stuff, because it tastes good. And they get fat from it. Same applies to beer. We need to find out things which taste well and people don’t get sick. I worked for years for a major producer of artificial sweeteners… and no, that’s not the right way either.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Undefined on Wednesday May 06, @06:22AM (2 children)
I squeeze a ripe lime into very cold filtered water about once a day as a treat. Nothing else in it.
I also mostly drink the filtered water straight, because I'm a risk taker like that. I use Brita water pitchers to get some of the city water crap out. I keep two pitchers in the refrigerator and cycle them; that way I always have good cold water.
No milk products, no alcohol, no sodas, no coffee, very little tea (English breakfast tea, cold-brewed, nothing else in it either.) etc.
On the other hand, I have a full bar for guests, because it has been asserted that my approach to fluids is not mainstream. Go figure.
I use a dedicated preprocessor to elaborate abbreviations.
Hover to reveal elaborations.
(Score: 1) by gonemissing on Thursday May 07, @01:46PM (1 child)
> I squeeze a ripe lime into very cold filtered water about once a day as a treat.
Yummy fructose.
Although I think that I may have read somewhere that it's not all that good for you. I'll go see if I can find the article...
(Score: 1) by Undefined on Thursday May 07, @09:15PM
Yeah... not really. About that:
Limes are great.
I use a dedicated preprocessor to elaborate abbreviations.
Hover to reveal elaborations.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 05, @01:30PM (7 children)
But if you cut out fructose and replace it with the same calories of sucrose, you're not getting thinner, I promise.
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @02:13PM (2 children)
You're never getting thinner, not until you contract a wasting disease ;-P
Actually, TFS is saying:
"Fructose is not just another calorie ... It acts as a metabolic signal that promotes fat production and storage in ways that differ fundamentally from glucose."
So, your sucrose substitution at least reduces the fructose free-swimming in your veins, and probably aligns better with the metabolic pathways we developed via evolution. HFCS is a clever hack for calories per $ of farm inputs, but until the 1970s it wasn't the predominant way mammals got their calories.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @01:44AM (1 child)
There's another thing too. Potassium. Lots of fruits have significant amounts of potassium. While not directly involved in fructose/carbohydrate metabolism it is indirectly involved.
Sweet drinks, cooked rice and pasta usually don't have that much potassium. Potatoes do though.
It's definitely not the main 100% cause of course (since people and other animals fatten up on modern fruits[1]), just noting that the imbalance of potassium can make things even worse.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-25728179 [bbc.com]
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-10-03-fruit-so-sweet-zoo-stopped-feeding-them-to-animals [weather.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08, @11:01AM
Examples:
Potassium and risk of Type 2 diabetes
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3197792/ [nih.gov]
Effect of experimental potassium deficiency on glucose and insulin metabolism
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0026049580900748 [sciencedirect.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05, @10:18PM
Who'd have known that a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose subunits contains fructose too?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday May 06, @02:08PM (1 child)
Yes you are. Friend of mine moved from a country that uses HFCS in soft drinks to one that doesn't and shed about half their body mass without any particular change in diet.
Sample size of one I admit, but it was a pretty astounding change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07, @12:50AM
There's some scientific evidence that HFCS can be bad for people but try putting it on wikipedia there seem to be HFCS apologists/defenders there...
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2021/fructose-promotes-obesity-colorectal-cancer [cancer.gov]
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday May 06, @04:43PM
Actually no, this is kind of old news here's a paper from 2016.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep26149 [nature.com]
They're not processed biochemically the same and for a very long time it's been known fructose is lots worse for your innards than sucrose. Much like 10 calories of ethanol and 10 calories of protein on a small scale just provide 10 calories of energy, but a lifetime of "way too much" ethanol leads to pretty awful medical conditions including getting real fat as the liver and pancreas are destroyed toward the end.
The whole fructose topic is probably going to turn into something like the tobacco settlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement [wikipedia.org]
"Well everyone always knew all along it was bad for the users but it was profitable and no one forced them to be addicted and we like being rich companies, so ..." and ends with a fraction of a trillion dollar settlement...
The idea of selling fructose enriched products in 2040 or so will probably sound a lot like selling radium enriched water sounds to moderns now, like how could they ever have been that crazy, but they were.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday May 05, @03:00PM (16 children)
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 104, Issue 6, December 2016, Pages 1562-1576: Effect of fructose consumption on insulin sensitivity in nondiabetic subjects: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diet-intervention trials [diabetesjournals.org]
The research into the effects of fructose consumption are pretty much because epidemiological data suggests there could be a causative mechanism between fructose consumption and health problems. Just because it is 'natural fruit sugar' doesn't necessarily make it healthy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @03:14PM (15 children)
There's "known by a few nerds in a closet" then there's "widely publicized in a format which will alter behaviors in a significant portion of the population."
I suspect that the Steak 'n Shake "Beef Tallow Fries" advertising campaign https://www.steaknshake.com/ [steaknshake.com] has altered more dietary choices than the fructose data which has been published.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Tuesday May 05, @03:52PM (7 children)
Mostly because even for people that buy into the HFCS being a villain, there's a massive amount of work that goes into avoiding it. As snide as people are about how you have to cook and can just cut it out, in practice, most of the affordable food options have it in there, and it assumes that you've got a grocery store near you and the time/facilities to cook.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @04:19PM (2 children)
> there's a massive amount of work that goes into avoiding it.
I remember the "sugar shock" of the 1970s when they shut down cane farming on Hawaii. Everything with sugar in it took a huge price jump up - especially highly processed foods like breakfast cereals. Then, quietly but quickly, HFCS slipped into its place wherever it wouldn't be noticed too much. Grocery prices didn't come down, profits went up. Some places were harder to hide it than others (remember "New Coke"?) but basically everything with added sugars - which is 90%+ of everything outside the butcher (forget processed meats, they're injected full) dry beans and produce sections of the grocery store, has added sugars.
I suppose Mexico grows their own sugar cane and never did adopt gringo corn - explaining why they never shifted their CocaCola formula off cane sugar.
Oh, and do you remember the timing of the "Big Gulp" trend? Just about coincident with HFCS moving into soda pop, fast food soda fountains went self-serve with free refills and 32, 44, 64 oz "single serving" cups started being offered for about the same price that 12oz used to sell for - 12oz price didn't go down, they just started acknowledging that you're paying for the cup, not what's in it. I think McDs has had $1 drinks: any size you like, for quite a while now.
Meanwhile:
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Tuesday May 05, @05:00PM (1 child)
People in the '70s were also in a much better position to avoid it than they are today. More households were single income with somebody staying at home, people were commonly making more money and sugar was added to fewer products that didn't need them than these days.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @05:38PM
You are correct, however my family is a contrary example: dual income from ~1965 until the divorce in ~1985 - then definitely dual income after that.
My household was just me, then dual income until shortly after we were married (2000ish), and has been single income ever since.
I think there's a fair amount of "don't do what your parents did" in our society.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 05, @06:47PM (3 children)
My spouse has IBS. Using a FODMAP based elimination diet, she identified fructose generally and HFCS specifically as a significant trigger for her symptoms. (Yes, eating sweet fruits, e.g. blueberries, is also a trigger.) To that end, we've been religiously label-checking for years. A surprising number of products have removed HFCS in the last few years, much to her delight. e.g. Snickers and Reese's Peanut butter cups.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05, @07:02PM (1 child)
Why does your spouse hate America?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday May 06, @08:02PM
She loves America. I'd go so far as to say her IBS makes her uniquely qualified to work in our politics. 🥰
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @08:54PM
> A surprising number of products have removed HFCS in the last few years
I guess it's not just the two of us reading labels, then.
My wife reads the label of everything that goes in the cart - HFCS is an insta-ban, will not buy, will not look at again until a BIG label on the front of the box indicates they have removed all HFCS from the product.
I think that's a little extreme, but I acknowledge the need to cut it back / radically down.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday May 05, @07:59PM (6 children)
Given how often I eat chips* [wikipedia.org], swapping to ones cooked in beef tallow wouldn't make a lot of difference to me, other than I prefer them to taste as they should (cooked in beef tallow) when I do, rarely, buy them. Every so often I get to eat chips deep fried in duck fat, which are not bad. I'd love to try them cooked in horse fat, which used to be a Northern France habit.
When I make a tortilla española [wikipedia.org], I cook the potato slices in olive oil. The oil/fat you cook in makes a huge difference to the resultant flavour. (So does the variety of potato one uses, but I don't want to go down that rabbit-hole.)
*Not 'fries'.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 05, @08:15PM
As you probably realize, our Westpondian youngsters derive approximately 10% of their caloric intake from "French Fries", and the average American consumes roughly 34 pounds of the things per year.
We also practice unholy sorcery on our potatoes:
I believe the process involves freeze-drying the water from what once was a potato and replacing it with "shortening" oil, which of course melts deliciously when deep fried...
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 05, @09:01PM (4 children)
I've taken to using my air fryer a lot and it's relatively simple to make fresh air fryer potatoes. Once you've got the timing down, it's set it and forget it. Which frees you up to do other things while the potatoes cook.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 05, @10:26PM (3 children)
Peeling and slicing time?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Wednesday May 06, @02:10AM (1 child)
If you want chips badly enough to do this, you'd likely get a mandolin slicer that makes short work of it. For fries rather than the other sort of chips, I've been doing oven fries and for a mediumish potato, I cut it in half, and then cut the halves into thirds for french fries. It only takes a couple minutes in total and unless you like the super thin fries, it does a pretty decent job.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday May 06, @02:49AM
We have a local eatery that makes fresh hot potato chips, and by the flavor, probably cooked in tallow. Marvelous!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Wednesday May 06, @02:06PM
Depending on how many people you're cooking for, it could take a bit of time. Not needing to watch a pan is really helpful though. I do what my mother in-law calls an army peel. I.E. I just peel the potatoes with a knife. It doesn't take much time, unless you're peeling 10+ potatoes. Cutting the potatoes doesn't take a lot of time, if you're reasonably well practiced at cutting vegetables. There's also kitchen devices like the mandoline which can make it easy. I usually cut them lengthwise to whatever thickness I feel like. Usually about 6 to 8 pieces to the potato. Unless they're rather small, then just halved or quartered.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05, @11:12PM
I don't care how many of you are outside. I'm not drinking the corn syrup. I hate the anti-christ.