The Deadly Effects of Fructose — Part 2

Fructose causes fatty liver

Fructose is even more strongly linked to obesity and diabetes than glucose. From a nutritional standpoint, neither fructose nor glucose contains essential nutrients. As a sweetener, both are similar. Yet fructose is particularly malevolent to human health compared to glucose due to its unique metabolism within the body.

Glucose and fructose metabolism differ in many significant ways. Whereas almost every cell in the body can use glucose for energy, no cell has the ability to use fructose. Once inside the body, only the liver can metabolize fructose. Where glucose can be dispersed throughout the body for use as energy, fructose is targeted like a guided missile to the liver.

When large quantities of glucose are eaten, it circulates to virtually every cell in the body, helping disperse this load. Body tissue other than the liver metabolizes eighty percent of ingested glucose. Every cell in the body, including the heart, lungs, muscles, brain, and kidneys help themselves to this all-you-can-eat glucose buffet. This only leaves the remaining twenty percent of the incoming glucose load for the liver to mop up. Much of this glucose is converted into glycogen for storage leaving a little glucose as substrate for new fat production.

The same does not hold true for fructose. Large quantities of ingested fructose goes straight to the liver, since no other cells can help utilize or metabolize it, putting significant pressure on the liver. Levels of carbohydrates and insulin may be 10 times higher here than in other parts of the circulation. Thus the liver is exposed to far higher levels of carbohydrates — both fructose and glucose than any other organ.

It is the difference between pressing down with a hammer and pressing down with a needle: all the pressure is directed onto a single point. Sucrose provides equal amounts of glucose and fructose. Where the glucose is metabolized by all 170 pounds of an average person’s tissue, an equal amount of fructose needs to be valiantly metabolized by only 5 pounds of liver. What this means practically is that fructose is likely 20 times more likely to cause fatty liver (the key problem of insulin resistance) compared to glucose alone. This explains how many primitive societies could…