Glucose, Fructose and Sucrose - The Differences in these sugars and which is worse for you and your health?

While the treats you eat all taste great, there is now evidence that suggest they react very differently in your body.

The three sugars that are most commonly eaten are glucose, fructose and sucrose.

Sucrose is what is commonly called table sugar.  Glucose is made when your body breaks down starches that you have eaten.  And, fructose is the sugar that is found naturally in fruits or in the often used high-fructose corn syrup like is used in sodas.  Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose.

University of California researchers compared the consumption of glucose and fructose sweetened beverages in 32 overweight people and found that the participants who had fructose-sweetened beverages had unhealthy side-effects besides their weight gain.

The beverages consisted of 25% of the participants daily caloric intake for 12 weeks and both groups gained weight comparably, but the fructose group had increase fat, increased LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, a reduced sensitivity to insulin, and more fat produced in the liver.

The participants who drank the glucose-sweetened beverages had no adverse changes.

So, it appears that all sugars are not the same just as all fats or carbohydrates are not the same.

Glucose appears to be converted by the body into energy and causes the production of leptin which is a hormone that helps to control fat storage and your appetite.  The production of a stomach hormone, ghrelin, is reduced.  Ghrelin reduction seems to help hunger go away.

Fructose does not increase insulin secretion or leptin product.  Nor does it suppress the production of ghrelin.  This leads to the belief that too much fructose could cause weight gain plus the other side-effects that appeared in the fructose group.

While you may begin a search for glucose-sweetened desserts and sodas, you are probably out of luck.  Most sweetened products are made with sucrose or fructose.  Most often it is the high-fructose corn syrup that is used.

This study indicates that the long-term consumption of these fructose-sweetened drinks may actually double your risk of obesity and may lead to diabetes.

What does this mean to you?  Well, you should drink less sugar-sweetened beverages!