FRUCTOSE safe for diabetics... really?!

fructose is the carbohydrate your body converts to fat most easily. it doesn't enter the bloodstream, so it doesn't affect the insulin secretion. fructose is processed in the liver, which has the proper enzymes to do the job. so fructose has no immediate effect on blood sugar and insulin levels, but there are lots of long-term effects.

your liver isn’t designed to process the amount of fructose most people eat today by consuming foods and beverages containing HFCS. our liver’s answer to this flood of fructose is to turn most of it into fat and ship it to your fat tissue. at the same time, the glucose that comes with the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup raises your blood sugar levels and makes your body secrete insulin, which tells your fat cells to store whatever comes their way, including the fructose processed into fat coming from your liver.

the more high-fructose corn syrup you eat and the more years you spend eating it, the more your body adapts by converting high-fructose corn syrup to fat. over time, you accumulate fat in your liver (a condition called fatty liver disease). so while fructose has no immediate effect on your blood sugar and insulin, after a few years it will likely cause you to store calories as fat

fructose also causes insulin resistance, a key factor in both diabetes and metabolic syndrome, both of which increase the risk for heart disease.

so whether it comes from HFCS, plain old sugar or, i’m sorry to say, agave nectar (which can be as high as 90% fructose, dwarfing even the amount found in HFCS), fructose is bad news.

now you are probably wondering about fruit. when fruit is consumed in normal amounts, it's completely safe since the amounts of fructose in it are small and the body also uses fructose for energy. some of the studies suggest that the liver can store about 50 grams of fructose before it starts to spill into fat. a banana contains about 10g of fructose, a medium apple 12.6g... remember, the lower the GI of the fruit, the higher the fructose content.

#fructose #fruit #sugar #glycemicindex #liver 

Want to learn more? Visit my Fb page by clicking here