A leading researcher argues that the widely used sweetener fructose might contribute to high blood pressure and prediabetes.
About half of our 350 daily added sugar calories come in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is the main sweetener in soft drinks and is added to packaged foods. Fructose, sometimes called fruit sugar, is a simple sugar that appears naturally in a variety of produce. Americans eat fructose mainly in the form of table sugar (which is half fructose and half glucose) and high fructose corn syrup (also part fructose and glucose). We all know that overeating sweets can make us gain weight. In his book, The Sugar Fix, Richard J. Johnson, MD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension at the University of Colorado in Denver, goes a little further. He puts forth the controversial theory that fructose, whether in table sugar or HFCS, poses risks to our well-being. MORE asked him to explain:Q: What got you interested in fructose?
A: I’m a specialist in high blood pressure. Part of my work involves trying to figure out what gives rise to primary hypertension, which is the hypertension that’s not caused by another medical condition. In my research, we discovered that, in laboratory animals, if you raise levels of uric acid—a waste product that’s excreted through the kidneys—then their kidneys hold onto salt and this leads to high blood pressure. Elevated uric acid levels are common in subjects with obesity and high blood pressure, and in one study we found that nearly 90 percent of adolescents with newly diagnosed high blood pressure had high uric acid in their blood. Furthermore, I worked with Dr. Dan Feig at Baylor and showed in a pilot study that lowering uric acid with a drug could lower blood pressure in this group of patients.
So there’s a hypothesis, which needs to be confirmed by other research, that high uric acid levels put you at risk for high blood pressure and that lowering the uric acid levels might improve high blood pressure.
So the next question is, why are uric acid levels going up so much? Most uric acid in the body is a by-product from eating purines, which are largely found in meat and organ meats, whose consumption has been going down. What other food item raises uric acid? It’s fructose—and the consumption of that has grown dramatically.
