Is there a nutritional difference between added sugar and natural sugar?

[jz78817]

@iljitsch

Glucose enters the blood stream and is then immediately available to muscles, the brain and other organs. Fructose goes to the liver for conversion to glucose, it can’t be used directly. The advantage is that it doesn’t spike blood glucose levels the way ingesting glucose does, but the way I understand it is that if you ingest too much fructose your liver will turn a good portion into fat that sticks around your organs, which is not good (much worse than the fat under your skin). But perhaps this has been debunked.

Of course there is no difference between glucose or fructose (or sucrose, which is 50% glucose and 50% fructose) that comes from plant A and the glucose/fructose that comes from plant B. Yes, it’s called “orange juice” and not “sugar cane juice” but it’s all plant juice: 89% water, 10% sugar and 1% other stuff.

@DSeid

To throw in the usual additions - sucrose and high fructose syrup both contain about the same amount of fructose.

It also is not just the amount of fructose that triggers that cascade but over what period of time, and possibly even where in the intestine it gets absorbed. The liver can handle fructose without inducing de novo lipogenesis at a certain rate, and more than that rate seems to trigger it.

basically the way I interpret these statements is “fructose is not inherently bad (even as part of the reviled high-fructose corn syrup,) but when you consume enough sucrose or HFCS where you get sufficient energy from the glucose, your body has little choice but to convert the remaining fructose to fat.”

which is to say in simpler terms, “stop eating/drinking stuff with so much goddamned sugar in it. Period.”

[Ambivalid]

@Yllaria

Ambivalid, they usually have to call it apple drink if there’s water and sugar added. But there are plenty of apple drinks out there.

Ok but I bet the total sugar in both beverages is similar.

[Nava]

@iljitsch

Glucose enters the blood stream and is then immediately available to muscles, the brain and other organs. Fructose goes to the liver for conversion to glucose, it can’t be used directly. The advantage is that it doesn’t spike blood glucose levels the way ingesting glucose does, but the way I understand it is that if you ingest too much fructose your liver will turn a good portion into fat that sticks around your organs, which is not good (much worse than the fat under your skin).

The two fats have the same chemical compositions, they’re just… think of one being the supermarket near your house and another being a warehouse for a chain of supermarkets. One will be accessed first, but it’s a matter of logistics.

[iljitsch]

@Nava

The two [strike]fats[/strike] sugars have the same chemical compositions, they’re just… think of one being the supermarket near your house and another being a warehouse for a chain of supermarkets. One will be accessed first, but it’s a matter of logistics.

Well, sugar as well as fat is all hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. There’s still a huge difference between sugars and fats and also between different kinds of fats.

Also, many compounds can be lefthanded or righthanded. It’s the same molecule but the two version are mirror images. Our amino acids are lefthanded, take the same compound that’s righthanded and the body can’t handle it or reacts completely differently to it.

[DSeid]

@jz78817

… which is to say in simpler terms, “stop eating/drinking stuff with so much goddamned sugar in it. Period.”

Yes, but relevant to the question of the op, that added sugar, and sweet beverages even if its sugar is natural to the product (apple juice I’m looking at you) is the easy way to get so much of it so quickly. Hard to do with, say eating whole apples, or raspberries.

[Nava]

@iljitsch

Well, sugar as well as fat is all hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. There’s still a huge difference between sugars and fats and also between different kinds of fats.

My response was to the last line in the post I quoted, which was about subcutaneous vs abdominal fat. As far as I know, there is no difference in composition between different types of fat by location; you find the same acids all over. Fats do not have “handedness” (chirality), and natural sugars all have the same chirality; to get carbohydrates with a different chirality you have to synthesize them artificially, which makes no economic sense (unlike hydrogenating fats).

[Yllaria]

@Exapno_Mapcase

The changes became law today so you won’t have seen them in stores yet.

However, the new labels make a point of showing an added sugars line.

Thanks for the link.

I like the change in emphasis that makes the serving size and calories per serving more obvious. The added sugar thing? I’m guessing it’s to show that the sugar didn’t need to be there, and is there to use your craving for sweets against you.

I don’t think the labels imply that added sugar is digested differently, just that someone deliberately chose to add sugar to this product.

[spamforbrains]

Yes, but relevant to the question of the op, that added sugar, and sweet beverages even if its sugar is natural to the product (apple juice I’m looking at you) is the easy way to get so much of it so quickly. Hard to do with, say eating whole apples, or raspberries.

No, not really. Many modern fruits are so full of sugar due to selective breeding for sweetness that you might as well be eating candy bars. The kind of banana people in the US eat is called a “dessert banana” by many people due to sugar content, and zookeepers don’t allow chimps and monkeys to eat them on a regular basis because they cause dental decay and type II diabetes because of their high sugar content. An entire modern apple has an enormous amount of sugar in it. Some parts of the world have come up with the “eat 2 servings of fruit and 5 or more servings of vegetables” per day guideline in an effort to limit consumption of sugar via fruit.

-the fructose vs. other sugars argument is an entirely different topic.

[iljitsch]

Abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat may be the same, but they still have different effects.

But my point was about the sugars and fats we eat, they end up doing very different things inside our bodies, even if the constituent parts are the same.

[DSeid]

@spamforbrains

No, not really. Many modern fruits are so full of sugar due to selective breeding for sweetness that you might as well be eating candy bars. The kind of banana people in the US eat is called a “dessert banana” by many people due to sugar content, and zookeepers don’t allow chimps and monkeys to eat them on a regular basis because they cause dental decay and type II diabetes because of their high sugar content. An entire modern apple has an enormous amount of sugar in it. Some parts of the world have come up with the “eat 2 servings of fruit and 5 or more servings of vegetables” per day guideline in an effort to limit consumption of sugar via fruit.

-the fructose vs. other sugars argument is an entirely different topic.

Um, no.

Banana, 1 medium, 118g: 105 Cal; 14g of sugar.

Apple 1 medium, 182g; 95 Cal; 19g sugar.

Mr. Goodbar one 2.6 oz bar, 73g, 393 Cal; 34g sugar. (Picked at random.)

Note that the serving size for a candy bar is significantly smaller than the serving size for either fruit yet has much more sugar.

Which of course is not at all the point, just a correction of an incorrect statement.

The point is first that eating the same amount of sugar in bananas as in one Mr. Goodbar would be two large bananas, or roughly two and a half medium apples. A little more effort involved to do that than to eat a single Mr. Goodbar and few people do. If they did it would pretty much fill them up and keep them satisfied for a bit. The one candy bar … many would immediately eat another if it was there. And still not feel at all full.

And point the second, that the packaging, sugar inside cells which need to be broken down, slows down the rate of the sugar absorption and the rate that it hits the liver.

Maybe this NYT bit says it more clearly than I do.

Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, said that sugar consumed in fruit is not linked to any adverse health effects, no matter how much you eat. In a recent perspective piece in The Journal of the American Medical Association, he cited observational studies that showed that increased fruit consumption is tied to lower body weight and a lower risk of obesity-associated diseases.

Whole fruits, he explained, contain a bounty of antioxidants and healthful nutrients, and their cellular scaffolding, made of fiber, makes us feel full and provides other metabolic benefits. When you bite into an apple, for example, the fruit’s fiber helps slow your absorption of fructose, the main sugar in most fruits. But fiber is not the full story.

“You can’t just take an 8-ounce glass of cola and add a serving of Metamucil and create a health food,” Dr. Ludwig said. “Even though the fructose-to-fiber ratio might be the same as an apple, the biological effects would be much different.”

Fiber provides “its greatest benefit when the cell walls that contain it remain intact,” he said. Sugars are effectively sequestered in the fruit’s cells, he explained, and it takes time for the digestive tract to break down those cells. The sugars therefore enter the bloodstream slowly, giving the liver more time to metabolize them. Four apples may contain the same amount of sugar as 24 ounces of soda, but the slow rate of absorption minimizes any surge in blood sugar. Repeated surges in blood sugar make the pancreas work harder and can contribute to insulin resistance, thereby increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes.

“If we take a nutrient-centric approach, just looking at sugar grams on the label, none of this is evident,” Dr. Ludwig said. “So it really requires a whole foods view.”

Fruit can also help keep us from overeating, Dr. Ludwig said, by making us feel fuller. Unlike processed foods, which are usually digested in the first few feet of our intestines, fiber-rich fruit breaks down more slowly so it travels far longer through the digestive tract, triggering the satiety hormones that tend to cluster further down the small intestines.

[guizot]

@DSeid

Maybe this NYT bit says it more clearly than I do.

This is something that I’ve always noticed simply in my personal experience of eating, and has just seemed obvious to me for that reason.