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Fructose may increase heart risk more than glucose

Category: Heart Health and Cholesterol

Drinks sweetened with fructose may increase risk factors for heart disease far more than drinks sweetened with glucose, according to a study appearing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

According to the New York Times, the researchers found that overweight subjects who consumed drinks sweetened with fructose over two weeks ended up with higher results on both LDL tests and triglyceride tests -factors which have been linked to an increased cardiovascular disease risk. Those who had drinks sweetened with glucose did not show increased levels of these risk factors on their blood tests. The fructose drinkers also showed larger increases of fat inside the abdomen, which is also linked to heart disease.

The drinks contained only pure fructose or pure glucose and were made specifically for the study, which means the experiment did not reproduce a real-life diet, according to John S. White, an expert on nutritive sweeteners who was not involved in the study.

Most sweeteners used in day to day life are a mix of both glucose and fructose, either as individual components such as in high-fructose corn syrup or combined into a single molecule of sucrose (table sugar).