Child diabetes blamed on food sweetener.

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Child diabetes blamed on food sweetener.

_http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6954603.ece_

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6954603.ece)

 

 

Scientists have proved for the first time that a cheap form of sugar used

in thousands of food products and soft drinks can damage human metabolism

and is fuelling the obesity crisis.

 

 

Fructose, a sweetener derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of

fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of

diabetes and heart disease.

 

 

It has increasingly been used as a substitute for more expensive types of

sugar in yoghurts, cakes, salad dressing and cereals. Even some fruit

drinks that sound healthy contain fructose.

 

 

Experts believe that the sweetener — which is found naturally in small

quantities in fruit — could be a factor in the emergence of diabetes among

children. This week, a new report is expected to claim that about one in 10

children in England will be obese by 2015.

 

 

Previous studies of the potentially adverse impact of fructose have

focused on rats, but the first experiment involving humans has now revealed

serious health concerns.

 

 

Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a strictly controlled diet, including high

levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and

other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing

abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers

on

the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these

problems.

 

 

People in both groups put on a similar amount of weight. However,

researchers at the University of California who conducted the trial, said the

levels of weight gain among the fructose consumers would be greater over the

long term.

 

 

Fructose bypasses the digestive process that breaks down other forms of

sugar. It arrives intact in the liver where it causes a variety of abnormal

reactions, including the disruption of mechanisms that instruct the body

whether to burn or store fat.

 

 

“This is the first evidence we have that fructose increases diabetes and

heart disease independently from causing simple weight gain,†said Kimber

Stanhope, a molecular biologist who led the study. “We didn’t see any of

these changes in the people eating glucose.â€

 

 

Natural fructose represents 5%-10% of the weight of any fruit. Its use in

processed foods stems from a discovery in 1971 that synthesised a 55%

fructose and 45% glucose syrup from maize, creating an ingredient cheaper and

six times sweeter than cane sugar.

 

 

High-fructose corn syrup, or glucose-fructose syrup, is listed as an

ingredient in many food and drink products in Britain, although it is virtually

impossible for consumers to know the quantity and ratio of fructose used.

Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina,

and a US government adviser on health policy, said: “Historically, we never

consumed much sugar. We’re not built to process it. â€

 

 

Rejecting the California research, a spokesman for the Food and Drink

Federation, a UK industry trade group, said: “It makes no sense to highlight

one single ingredient as a cause of obesity.â€