Did you know that the average American consumes around 94 grams of sugar per day ([Source](https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/20/sugar-consumption-americans/))? That's equivalent to around 400 calories! 

<center>http://i.imgsafe.org/6a159ace9d.jpg</center>
<center>[Source](https://pixabay.com/en/sugar-spoon-cutlery-sweeteners-485045/)</center>

I should hope over the past few years we have all gotten the message about the large number of health concerns associated with a high intake of simple sugars (table sugar is a simple sugar, while carbohydrates from say...rice, are a complex sugar!). The issues of excess sugar consumption are far reaching and include contributing to the development of [Diabetes](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057873), [Heart Disease](http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2548255), [Cancer](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0099816), and even [Modified Brain Reward Center Activity (similar to those found in addicts)](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161228).


<center>http://i.giphy.com/A4Q68p9EU3TRC.gif</center>
<center> Bobby no! You should stop that, didn't you hear when I said cancer?</center>

So a goal of reducing overall sugar intake has been reccomended by many health organizations including: [The WHO](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/sugar-guideline/en/), [The American Heart Association](http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/Nutrition/Sugar-101_UCM_306024_Article.jsp#.WIaoCfkrJPY) and [The American Cancer Society](https://www.acscan.org/policy-resources/recommendations-2015-dietary-guidelines-americans), you know groups concerned about the chronic diseases that high sugar consumption can  cause. I doubt there are any surprises here. 

What might be of interest to you ( though may be common sense to some ) is that not all simple sugars are the same with regards to their effects on the body. In an article published in December of 2016 in the American Journal of Physiology titled "Type of Supplemented Simple Sugar, Not Merely Calorie Intake, Determines Adverse Effects on Metabolism and Aortic Function in Female Rats."  The authors did some interesting experiments looking at the effects of both glucose and fructose consumption on various aspects of metabolism in rats.

# Fructose Vs. Glucose... Sucrose (table sugar) Vs. High Fructose Corn Syrup 

Before we dive into the article lets take a brief moment to look at the sugar sources tested in the article, as well as comparing two prominent dietary sugar sources. 

## Fructose Vs. Glucose

We begin with the two sugar molecules, fructose (plant sugar) and glucose (animal blood sugar). Below I have put their chemical structures:

<center>http://i.imgsafe.org/6aba177f33.png</center>
<center>[Source 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose), and [Source 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose)</center>

You can see that these two sugars look pretty similar, they are both ring shaped molecules with fructose having a ring composed of 4 connected carbons, while glucose has a ring with 5 connected carbons. These two sugars exist on their own, and are termed monosaccharides (mono means one, and saccharide means sugar!) and as a result are easy for the body to process quickly. It is for this reason that we call them "simple sugars" as their is very little processing required before they can be involved in metabolic processes. In animals glucose circulates in our blood in the monosaccharide form, however for plants, fructose is usually exists in the form of a disaccharide (di meaning two sacharide meaning sugar) and is bound to a glucose monomer.  We know that fructose-glucose disaccharide quite well, its called sucrose (table sugar).

## Sucrose Vs. High Fructose Corn Syrup


<center>http://i.imgsafe.org/6ad981dcfd.png</center>
<center>[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose)</center>

The image above is of sucrose, if you compare the shapes with in it to the structures I showed you before you should be able to see that there is a glucose unit (on the left) covalently bound to a fructose unit (on the right). So I am sure you are well aware of all of the marketing that companies present to you about how they are removing high fructose corn syrup from products and replacing it with "REAL SUGAR."

<center>https://c1.staticflickr.com/2/1712/25493880280_8e2972f2df_z.jpg</center>
<center> Oh, well that soda is so healthy now that they took that high fructose corn syrup out of it! /s</center>

However have you ever wondered what the difference is between the two?

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by reacting corn starch ( a very long chain of predominantly glucose molecules linked together in series) with the enzyme [glucose isomerase](https://hamptonresearch.com/documents/product/hr005720_7-102_user_guide.pdf) which reacts with two glucose molecules and releases a glucose molecule and a fructose molecule. Reaction of the corn starch with the glucose isomerase converts some of the glucoses in the chains to fructoses. The goal was to create a solution that had a fructose concentration that was similar to that of sucrose (which is 1:1, or 50%). There are two main varieties of HFCS one which is 42% fructose (HFCS - 42) and one which is 55% fructose (HFCS - 55). ([Source](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/88/6/1716S.full))

### So You're Telling Me, High Fructose Corn Syrup Isn't Really High In Fructose?

Yes, that's what I am telling you. The amount of fructose in HFCS is basically the same as what is present in Sucrose (table sugar). The difference between the two is largely that sucrose is composed of those disaccharides, while HFCS is longer chains of the glucose and fructose units linked together. These longer chains are in part what makes it syrupy.

<center>http://i.imgsafe.org/6ba191ca0d.png</center>
<center> [Source: Ohhh Yummy!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/High_fructose_corn_syrup_tanker.jpg) </center>

### But Wait... I thought It was Really Bad For You

Oh it is, what I am going to tell you is that the "healthier" sucrose alternative isn't any healthier. Lets get to the article.

# The Study

The authors of the study wanted to determine the effects of the consumption of the simple sugars glucose and fructose and the effect that the consumption had on various aspects of metabolism in rats.

What they found was interesting:

### Only Fructose Caused Increases in Body and Liver Weight

The authors supplemented the diets of rats with solutions consisting of either 20% glucose or 20% fructose. They tried to keep total caloric intake for the rats similar by limiting the food available for the rats to eat, however in this study the total number of calories consumed for the rats with the glucose solution was about 1.15 times that of those drinking the fructose solution.

However oddly, only the fructose group showed a marked increase in body weight (1.1 times heavier than at the start) at the end of the 8 week study (10% weight gain in only 8 weeks). The glucose group, while consuming MORE calories didn't gain weight. In addition the mass of the liver of the fructose fed rats increased by 1.4 fold over that of control and 1.3 fold over that of the glucose fed rats! 

Consumption of **fructose** specifically resulted in fatter rats, with significantly fattier livers. Glucose did increase fat generation in the animals livers, but not to the extent of fructose.

## Both Sugars Result In Increased Insulin Resistance In The Liver and Blood Vessels

The supplementation of both sugars resulted in a weakened effectiveness of insulin in both the liver and aorta of these rats, however as was the case for fat formation, fructose resulted in a much greater detrimental effect then did glucose.

## Conclusions

Dietary supplementation with liquid glucose or fructose results in metabolic and vascular changes in rats. The changes observed for rats fed fructose were worse then those observed in those fed glucose.

## Take Away

Not all simple sugars are created equally and it would appear that the consumption of fructose has a significantly greater possibility for negative effects. We are presented with the idea that eliminating High Fructose Corn Syrup from our diets, and instead supplementing sucrose is a more healthy option. 

The fructose composition in either of these two sugar sources is relatively comparable, thus neither is a better option for consumption.  

The only healthy move is to keep sugar consumption to as low as possible. You're an adult and nobody can tell you how to eat, however the science is stacking up that over consumption of sugars has a detrimental effect on the body. This new research indicates that over consumption of fructose has a higher potential for harmful effects then glucose.

<hr>

# Sources

1) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057873
2) http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2548255
3) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161228
4) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0099816
5) http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000201
6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose
8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose
9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
10) http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/88/6/1716S.full
11) http://jcs.biologists.org/content/114/8/1429



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**Any Gifs Are From Giphy.com and Are Also Available for Use Under Creative Commons Licences**

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