Health fitness surprise

I was surprised by a health fitness article concerning fructose which appeared in one of our national papers recently.

As you know fructose is the component in fruit which produces its sweetness.

Fructose has a different chemical structure, not that we can tell any difference, it all tastes sweet like our usual sugar.

A team of researchers at John Hopkins University's School of Medicine reported,

HIGH CONSUMPTION OF FRUCTOSE WAS POTENTIALLY MORE DANGEROUS THAN OTHER FORMS OF SUGAR BECAUSE OF THE WAY IT AFFECTED THE BRAIN.

The part that interested me most was that fructose increases appetite and hence can lead to a problem with weight loss.

One of my friends recently said to me "I use honey because its natural". What she didn't realise is that honey is a highly refined form of fructose from our hard working bees.

Fructose may be great for bees but obviously not for humans.

This statement from John Hopkins amazed me because our normal sugar (sucrose) usually reduces appetite.

Although found naturally in fruit and honey it is normally associated with health and fitness.

Another form of fructose is produced from corn flour and hydrochloric acid and this is now extensively used in confectionery and also used to sweeten foods and drinks.

Why?------- BECAUSE IT IS MUCH CHEAPER THAN SUGAR!

It is now being suggested that fructose is contributing to rising obesity and type 2 diabetes in teenagers.

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It was reported, that whereas glucose tended to reduce the amount of food that people ate, fructose on the other hand actually increased consumption as it apparently increases appetite.

Researcher Daniel Lane said, "As people ate more high energy foods and became less active they became more obese and then developed insulin resistance with type 2 diabetes".

The changes were seen more in younger age groups which didn't surprise me, as children would eat nothing but highly sweetened foods if given the chance.

As time goes by there is more and more evidence appearing that sugars in their various forms are playing a very large role in our weight loss problems.

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As a child I was hooked on anything sweet and would spend any money on satisfying my desire for any thing sweet. I don't think I was an orphan in this respect.

As I got older, I succeeded in handling my sugar addiction whereas, many others developed type 2 diabetes.

This sweetness addiction has been an area which I found I had to work very hard to overcome as this effects health fitness.

Because we are by nature so attracted to sweet things we are suckers for this and many people find it very hard to get control of it.

In fact I am now beginning to realise our taste for sugar is a form of addiction which like any other addiction is very very hard for us to overcome.

There is very little in our food chain apart from meats and fish that don't contain some form of sugar and this effects health fitness.

Even the most popular root vegetables like carrots, parsnips and beetroot have a high sugar content.

However our problems lie more in the area of the amount of sugar which is now added to almost everything in our food chain because it acts as a cheap form flavour enhancer.

We are going to have a lot of difficulties improving health and fitness and particularly weight problems until we recognise the extent of this problem. go to body fat

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