You'll Never Drink Soda Again After Reading This

Q. What other effects does fructose have on the body?
Fructose changes you. It appears to cause resistance to the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin, and there’s some evidence that it depletes your energy, i.e. the amount of spontaneous exercise you engage in. Maybe all those Americans are sitting in front of TV sets instead of moving around because their energy has been depleted by eating too much fructose. There is research being conducted at the University of California, Davis, in which people have been put on diets where 25 percent of their calories are coming from either fructose-sweetened drinks or ones sweetened by glucose. After 10 weeks, both groups gained the same amount of weight, but the fructose group put on more pounds in the abdomen, which could lead to future heart trouble. The fructose group—but not the glucose group—also showed decreased insulin sensitivity, a potential precursor of diabetes.

Q Does this mean that eating fruit is dangerous?
A Natural whole fruits have a lot of things that counteract the bad effects of fructose like fiber, vitamin C, and resveratol, the antioxidant best known for being in red wine. Most natural fruits are not particularly problematic. The exceptions are apples, pears and watermelon, plus fruit juices which contain large doses of sugar.

Q How hard is it to stay on a low-fructose diet?
A In The Sugar Fix diet, we reduce sugar to one-third of what most people are eating. People who go on it will tell you that after a few weeks their urge for sugar falls dramatically. They feel better and have more energy. The hardest time is the first two weeks. There is no doubt that some people are addicted to sugar, and it is difficult for them to get off it—it requires a bit of determination. One trick is to eat sugar-free popsicles.

Q If you could remove one food from the American diet, what would it be?
A Soft drinks. The problem is not just the amount that people drink. It’s the concentration of fructose in a short time. People guzzle soda. I would like to see a sugar tax that raises money for research and is high enough to reduce the consumption of soft drinks. I also think food labels should say how much fructose the products contain and also provide warnings as to the health effects of fructose.