Eat Less Fructose To Prevent Hypertension!

Dessert is usually a sweet course of dish served at the end of a meal. It includes cake, cookie, gelatin, pastry, ice cream, pie, and candy. Dessert is not only liked by children but also favored by many adults especially females.

Besides dessert, many of our daily diet can also be laden with excessive sugar. For instance, sugary or soda drinks are popular among teenagers and many young adults. Most of these sweetened drinks contained the popular high-fructose corn syrup (sometimes called corn sugar). Fructose can be found naturally in fruit and table sugar and that is why it is also called fruit sugar.

Well, lovers of sugary drinks and sugar-laden foods should pay attention to results of a study conducted by scientists from the United States, who reported that consuming a lot of foods and drinks sweetened with fructose might significantly increase the risk of developing hypertension (high blood pressure).

The study was published on July 1, 2010 in the ‘Journal of the American Society of Nephrology’ by researchers from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. They found increased rates of borderline high blood pressure for people who consumed at least 74 grams of fructose a day (about 4 bottles of soda).

American Heart Association (AHA) also warned that having too much sugar of any kind can cause people gain weight and this could in turn lead to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

While scientists have yet to find out the exact reason why fructose would raise blood pressure, some experts suspected that fructose has the potential to reduce production of nitric oxide within the blood vessels.

Nitric oxide, which is known to relax the vessel, is supposed to lower blood pressure. But fructose reduces the production of nitric oxide and makes it difficult for the vessels to relax and dilate.

Meanwhile, fructose also raises uric acid in the blood that could raise blood pressure. Fructose can signal the kidneys to 'hold onto' more salt, and that can contribute to high blood pressure.

Are There Gender Differences In Metabolizing Fructose?

Fructose is a simple sugar commonly used for sweetening drinks and foods. Short-term high fructose intake among young people is rather common. However, it appears that men and women have their own way of metabolizing high levels of fructose.

For men, such pattern of consumption will cause their blood triglycerides (fats) to increase and insulin resistance to decrease. This will also raise their risk for cardiovascular disease and Type-2 diabetes. On the other hand, women seem to get rid of the excess sugar load in a less harmful way.

In a study to evaluate the relationship between nutrition and metabolic disorders, researchers from Lausanne University School of Biology and Medicine in Switzerland enlisted 8 each of healthy, non-smoking men and women of normal weight and about 23 years of age to participate in 2 different 6-day diets separated by a 4-week wash-out period. The findings of the study were published in “Diabetes Care”

Not participated in sports or exercise, these men and women followed either the 'control' diet or the diet that included a lemon-flavored drink containing 3.5 grams of fructose.

The fructose load used for the study corresponded to several liters of sodas per day, which was considered quite large. 12 fasting metabolic parameters of the participants were tested the day after they completed each diet.

Fructose supplementation caused the men a significant increase in 11 of the 12 factors, including a 5 percent increase in fasting glucose and 71 percent increase in triglyceride levels. However, women had a significant increase in only 4 out of the 12 factors tested, and showed a 4 percent increase in fasting glucose and 16 percent increase in triglyceride levels.

As the current study only involved a very small number of participants, the researchers felt that further studies should be carried out to include a larger population so that gender differences in metabolic pathways could be accurately be identified and confirmed.

Meanwhile, the researchers also wonder if fructose may have effects that are more deleterious in individuals who are at high risk of metabolic disorders.