Cancer cells slurp up fructose, US study finds

http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFN0210830520100802

'* Study shows fructose used differently from glucose

* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars

Aug 2 (Reuters) - Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.

Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.

They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.

"These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation," Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.

"They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth."

Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.'

more at link


Sugar is Sugar. Yeah.

now if I could just get off the aspartame.

i cut the regular sodas totally out of my diet in january and am now 40 pounds lighter. i know, it's not totally the sodas, but i did drink a lot of them.

And diabetes runs in my family - although I don't have it - so I have to watch the sugar.

What's a girl to do without Splenda? I can do some honey with some foods, but not all. I'm trying!

Any help you can provide would be of much welcome.

It's low glycemic and yet very sweet. Splenda and Nutrasweet are excitotoxins, bad for a normal brain, horrible for those with ADD, bipolar and assorted other brain differences.

I'll try that!

The lowest glycemic index of all sugars. Cleanest taste of all sugars. It can be poured directly on waffles as syrup and if you like maple, mix it with a concentrated Maple. It can be used almost anywhere sugar is called for. I buy it by the gallon. Four gallons to an order that lasts me about a year. Shelf life conservatively 2 years. Its like discovering liquid gold. Doesn't spoil, or mold or even need refrigeration, at least I have not refrigerated it. Been using it for over 3 years now. But lamentably as the above poster notes is high in fructose. However it is a much different fructose than corn syrup. Do some research if you have a condition that might be effected. Here is a start. Or just google Agave high in fructose to learn the difference.

http://www.sweetsavvy.com/sweeteners/summary.php?id=Agave%20Nectar

It's the only sweetener, besides turbinado, that we use.

To produce agave nectar from the Agave tequiliana plant, juice is expressed from the core of the agave, called the piña.<2> The juice is filtered, then heated to hydrolyze polysaccharides into simple sugars. The main polysaccharide is called inulin or fructosan and comprises mostly fructose units. The filtered, hydrolyzed juice is concentrated to a syrup-like liquid a little thinner than honey that ranges in color from light to dark depending on the degree of processing.

An alternative method used to process the agave juice without heat is described in a United States patent for a process that uses enzymes derived from the mold Aspergillus niger to hydrolyze the polyfructose extract into fructose.

Agave nectar consists primarily of fructose and glucose. One source<6> gives 92% fructose and 8% glucose; another<7> gives 56% fructose and 20% glucose. These differences presumably reflect variation from one vendor of agave nectar to another. Agave nectar's glycemic index and glycemic load are comparable to fructose, which in turn has a much lower glycemic index and glycemic load<8> than table sugar (sucrose).<9>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave_nectar


agave nectar is fairly similar to hfcs; different substrate material & ad campaign is all.

it's funny how folks decry x while recommending y (which has similar characteristics).

for example stevia:

plants are dried and subjected to a water extraction process. This crude extract contains about 50% rebaudioside A and is refined using ethanol, methanol, crystallization and separation technologies to separate the various glycoside molecules in the extract.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia

how often i've seen people decrying the solvents used in making hfcs. they seem to think stevia is made by peasants stomping the plants into powder or something.

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crappy in coffee to me. The Coke and Pepsi stevia they have out now, I think it's Truvia and Purvia (spelling may be off), tastes good in my tea and oatmeal. Light and sweet.

that's what i mainly put it in also. i have tea and oatmeal every day.

marketing strategy for yuppies.

truvia = cargill. same corp which brings you hfcs.

just market segmentation by income.

Also honey, peppers, onions, carrots, and many other root vegetables.

shame you did not bother to actually post something factual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption#Foods_with_high_fructose_content

for assuming you were actually trying to post something that was in any way relevant to the OP.

From now on I'll just assume you post incoherent babble to hear the clicking on your keyboard.

Cheers!

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Come on. Acting like you were not saying that - or thinking you're being clever - just makes you look foolish.

I wonder how much fructose is in the crow you're desperately trying to avoid eating?

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All I did was call bullshit on your post's attempt at either humor or being antagonistic. I'm one of those "eat what you want to eat" kind of people, personally. I don't drink soda cause I did not grow up with it other than for special occasions, so I find it too sweet, but if you want to drink it all day, please be my guest.

But I'm sorry for pointing out your failed attempt at... something or other. And yes, by saying "better stay away from..." in response to a post about a possible link between fructose and cancer, you are very much taking a jab at the anti-HFCS people. Have fun being contentious though if that's what apparently gets you off.

1) The OP posts an article about a study linking fructose to accelerated pancreatic cancer growth.

2) You post, "Posted to remind myself to stay away from HFCS"

So obviously this was an attempt at taking a jab at HFCS, unless you want me to take you literally. If that's the case one can only guess at how many yellow stickies you must have pasted to your forehead.

So let's not play this game where you are allowed to take extreme liberty with your inferences on my posts, and I'm not allowed to make pretty obvious connect the dots inferences with yours, OK? Doing otherwise simply makes you look like an extreme hypocrite.

Um, I posted no such thing. Now I am starting to feel guilty about making fun of your illiteracy. Sorry about that.

My posts were nothing more than an easy to read chart showing the levels of fructose and glucose in various foods, which showed that your fruits and vegetables were not anywhere near as high in either component as HFCS. Fwiw, I don't think anything is specifically wrong with HFCS any more than any other sugar, but the amount of it in processed food is really ridiculous.

Posters are allowed to take shots at HFCS and inform the populace it's bad juju.

But I'm also allowed to point out what is silly conjecture and pseudo science nonsense.

When you eat 41 lbs of HFCS and 135 lbs of table sugar per year (as the average American does), it's doesn't take rocket surgery to figure out that's not such a great idea. That doesn't mean one can automatically extrapolate that since a lot is bad, a little is bad too.

That for the public good, it's probably wiser for food manufacturers to stick with sucrose-based sugars?

....in case you cared about facts. Sucrose is a polysaccharide which is made up of Glucose and Fructose. During our digestion, it will first be converted to those sugars. HFCS is usually 55/45 glucose, so I am not sure what difference that would make to the body.

Do you have any ACTUAL facts to mention???

"less refined sucrose-based ..."

HFCS is simply an amalgamation of mostly fructose and dextrose. With sucrose the two are chemically combined. The former requires no metabolizing by the body to derive the simpler sugars. So it's possible there could be significant differences between how the two substances positively or negatively affect the body. Whether it's likely if that's the case is debatable, and anyone who tells you it's probable is probably blowing smoke up your ass, and anyone who tells you it definitely makes a difference is completely full of shit.

Despite what some would have you believe, the actual evidence that says HFCS is any worse than table sugar is very slim. The best thing that's out there is the Princeton study which raises more questions than it answers. There's even less to go on with the study referenced by the OP.

When consumed in massive amounts there's no doubt that HFCS is quite bad for you, but so is sucrose, and there's at least some scant evidence that many other alternatives may be even worse. So I don't think manufacturers should be making knee jerk reactions based on inconclusive evidence, especially when nobody knows if any alternative is any better. The advantage to HFCS is it's cheaper to produce (whether subsidized or not). So one thing we do know for sure is that if manufacturers switch to higher cost alternatives, the price of food goes up. So the choices they have is going with one sweetener which may or may not have disadvantages or going with one we know for sure has disadvantages. The former doesn't seem wise to me. But that question is mostly academic. Food manufacturers (and every other type of manufacturer) doesn't do things for the public good, they do things for their bottom line. If they don't give the consumer what the consumer demands at a price that's competitive, someone else will. If the consumer demands copious amounts of liquid candy (sodas), filtered fruit juices, twinkies, ding-dongs, ho-hos, and all the other sugar laced garbage by the truckload, that's what they are going to either provide or go out of business.

If someone wants to reduce their risk of cancer and type II diabetes, the very, very best thing to do is match your calories to your activity level, keep your weight down, don't smoke cigarettes, keep the level of crap you eat in moderation, see a doctor regularly, and get cardio exercise several times per week. It's the very same thing people could have learned from watching Dr. Welby 40 years ago. People keep trying to flip around red herrings when the elephant in the room is staring them in the face.

I spoke to the lead researcher on that. That study was done using rats. He told me that if people looked up the few human studies, they'd be even more alarmed.

One such study, from last December http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6954603.ece

I won't debate with you or anyone else the wisdom in moderating one's intake of sugars in the first place, nor the importance of exercise. But, just like it was with HRT, there is a community of people, working in the public interest on one side, who are increasingly backed by studies that are proving unpopular with those segments of the science industry that serve the business community.

One thing the researcher probably didn't tell you is that when the rats in the Princeton study were given HFCS 24 hours per day, they gained no more weight than the rats who were given sucrose. He probably also didn't mention that female rats had no difference either, and that only adolescent rats were used. So there's lots of problems with the Princeton study. The only differences in weight gain were in a very limited set of circumstances and remember too that they were also given many times more than the typical human dose and were fed nothing else other than rat chow.

There's more problems with the study you just posted. For one thing, all you get is news media conclusions rather than the actual study itself, which is certainly dubious at best. If you'll notice, it also uses young people who, like the rats in the Princeton study are at a time in their life when significant weight gain occurs. So how this translates to adults is unclear. Furthermore the study you posted used pure fructose and pure glucose, and both of those two substances are used very rarely as sweeteners. So why didn't the University of California use a more realistic test like HFCS vs table sugar? That alone makes it suspect. I suspect they may have at some point and filed the results when they didn't produce anything new or exciting, which happens all the time with university research.

That is in the science world.

My point was simply that the levels are drastically different between the amount of glucose and sucrose in honey, sugar or HFCS and what is found in the average apple or pear or what have you, hence the chart at the link.

There are many things in life which are better for you in lower doses, and frankly the level of all of these sugars in the average American diet is anything but healthy. I was never arguing that there's no fructose in fruit, and in fact my link shows there is, just far less.

he talked to one of his university friends and got one of those blood sugar testers. he switched to the caveman diet. no sugar. little fruit. coffee w/ heavy cream. nuts, meat, some veggies. no corn. his wife follos it mostly to because diabetes runs in her family. their kids get some more stuff like bread and potatoes. i can only go so far.

If he is overweight, getting to a normal weight is one of the best things he can do. Exercise is also very important. In many instances, diabetes can be avoided indefinitely by changing to a healthy lifestyle.

Got to got to got to get away.

Here's hoping.:toast:

Just playing...

;-)

but is will also get intense targeted HATE from the usual defenders of Monsanto, ADM, and the Factory Farm Industry.

My wife and I have chosen to limit our consumption of Food-Like Substances produced by America's Factory Food Production & Delivery System.

I must say it is beautiful!:fistbump:

spots on your leaves from early blight?

and we have had a problem with fungal diseases like Early Blight, especially with Tomatoes.
We took some steps to minimize it this year.

1)In our previous years, we observed that Early Blight seems to start from raw dirt splashed on leaves during rain storms.
This year, when we put out the seedlings, we covered raw earth with perforated newspaper, sterile Peat Moss, and then a layer of straw.

2)We gave more space to our individual plants, and put some in dispersed areas of the garden. Early Blight is contagious.

3)We pruned any leaf cluster or branch that could (or did) come in contact with the ground. We also religiously pinched early suckers to encourage the plants to grow taller.

4)We used strong, flat support structures (hogwire on metal fence posts) so that we could use a modified Espalier method of spreading the branches on a flat structure for better ventilation and inspection.

5)We discontinued all overhead watering, and only deep watered at the base of the plants.

6)We started weekly prophylactic spraying with Neem Oil, especially the parts of the plants that were close to the ground.

7)If any leaf showed the slightest sign of yellowing or brown spots, the entire branch is pruned, and removed from the garden. We no longer compost any plant material that shows the slightest sign of disease. We used Universal Precautions when handling any material that could be contaminated (like not touching any other part of the plant after clipping something that may be blighted, taking care to NOT spread spores, and washing the shears we used to prune)

8) We planned to pull and dispose of plants that showed signs of blight this year, but haven't had to do so yet. In the past, we tried to nurse along sick plants. They WILL still produce tomatoes, but the taste of tomatoes from sick plants is awful.
We started more tomatoes in early July just in case, but haven't needed them this year because our old plants are still healthy. We are transplanting them now anyway.

I can't say for sure that anything we did had any effect on actually minimizing Blight, only that we haven't had a problem this year. Next year could be different. YMMV.

So far this year, Early Blight (or any other blight) hasn't been a problem, and we're into August now with healthy tomato plants. The biggest problem this year has been the HEAT.
We added mid-day shade to our tomatoes in July, and they are making fruit again.


The Gardening Forum is a good resource.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=246


Good Luck.

Best term ever!!!!

I wish I had been here to take your bet.

I heard this on the radio this morning on my way home from work and was amazed that it was being publicized. I knew it was big the moment I heard it. I mean, I've known for a while that HFCS is one of the more unhealthy sugars but I didn't think there would be much backlash until I heard this.

Propaganda proven wrong...again.

Cheap food and fast food... leading us down the path to self-destruction. Let's eat stuff that is less processed and as close to natural as possible, IMHO.

So, good luck.

As opposed to soft drinks and other 'foods' that contain high levels of HFCS.

And that's what this article is about.

into the pancreas.

Where it can be consumed by cancer cells, regardless of where it came from.

no one's stopping you, eat as much of that stuff as you want.:evilgrin:







Any problem if we want to worry over what we consume?

Understanding the facts is a pretty important part of that, however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption#Foods_with_high_fructose_content

shame. Yes, they have fructose, but not nearly the same levels.

I guess you really think you are bringing something new and exciting to the table here, but you aren't. You're simply posting something that's painfully obvious to anyone with more than 2 synapses actively firing. You're simply trying to imply that if a little fructose is bad, a lot must much worse. Furthermore, if you weren't such a google expert, you might know that most any disaccharide, like table sugar, is easily metabolized by the body into simple sugars, like fructose and dextrose. All the study tells us is that pancreatic cancer cells grow faster in a petri dish when exposed to fructose. Everything else is pure conjecture. For all we know a pear can be just as bad, or worse, than a can of coke. You pretend to know things you can't possibly know.

that fruits are every bit as bad/good for you as the fructose laden crap that a lot of people seem to eat. And please, don't let me stop you either from eating whatever you want to, or from being condescending when someone points it out that there's a difference between a pear and a can of coke, despite your attempt to say they are potentially equally bad for you.

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As far as how threads nest, I'm pretty sure every one of them eventually points back to the OP. At least on my browser it does. Perhaps in your world it doesn't.

At any rate, I don't do personal attacks, so since that's the latest phase of the little game you're trying to play, I think I'm done here. You'll have to find someone else of similar intellect to play those games.

Have a nice day.

I posted that your post was misleading, posted a link showing why, and you more than once accused me of having an IQ below room temperature, not having two synapses, etc., but that's not a personal attack? Ok.

Please point it out. Because your link disputes nothing. Thanks!

I just get sick of people who essentially say that fruits and vegetables are bad for you. I apologize for thinking that's what you were saying.

Words fly fast & furious on these threads, and the biggest problem seems to be the fundamental misunderstanding people have about the terminology and chemistry.

but that said, I do think that while comparing sugar levels in HFCS and honey or sugar are valid, comparing any of those to a pear or apple, which has something like ten times less sugar, is somewhat ridiculous. But I am sorry I jumped to a conclusion with you because I had just read several posts saying that fruits and veggies were to be warned against (obviously tongue in cheek, but about as annoying as when someone says "broccoli feels pain too!" in a food thread out of defensiveness of their own dietary choices).

Just commenting on the overall problems on this thread. Yes, my warning was tongue-in-cheek, but valid - fructose from any sources could apply to the conclusions of the study in the OP. People see "fructose" and they think the ONLY source is from HFCS-containing products.

.....how fiber and nutrients "buffer the influx of sugar". Please.

Which sugar is buffered?? Which "nutrients" take care of this?? Pancreas?? Yikes.

I get a kick out of this "buffer" baloney. I wish somebody in this whole good food/bad food argument would throw down some facts without the politically correct bull that passes for science in this debate. Not that it would do any good. I still hear "sugar makes kids hyperactive," which I thought went out the window based on actual science years ago.

However it is not in a concentrated form such as what is found in HFCS. A pear likely has less fructose per volume than a can of pepsi

However it's the same fructose - people on this thread seem to be massively confused about what fructose is and where it comes from. Overconsumption of anything is bound to be bad.

The article says "refined fructose". The fructose in natural fruit is not refined. I suspect not only is the amount in fruit much lower, but it metabolizes differently when not refined.

A specific arrangement of atoms. Refined or not, fructose is the same.

artificial fructose. It's like the hormones they give women that are artificial...they are NOT the same.

In fact, the fructose in HFCS is completely natural in origin. It comes from the same corn that regular corn syrup comes from, that the stuff on your plate comes from, too.

The problem is not the sugar itself, but our huge overindulgence in it. Everything these days is sweetened with high dosages of fructose. Even if we lived entirely off fruit, we still would not be eating as much fructose as we are on average when we eat our modern diet. The reason for this is that high fructose corn syrup is just as sweetening as table sugar, and costs less; it's a temperate plant that is grown in massive amounts to sustain our other unhealthy addiction - meat. it's essentially a feed lot waste product, and so is dirt-cheap compared to the labor-intensive tropical that is sugarcane.

In the same way, the hormones are the same as natural; though they are lab-produced, they are the same chemical substance as what the body produces. It's overexposure to them that causes problems - or ever more frequently, pseudo-hormones, chemicals that mirror the effects of hormones on our body but that are actually environmental pollutants (the hydrocarbons that mimic estrogen are a good example)

No more than there is "artificial" water. Fructose is a molecule. It's made up of the same atoms in the same arrangement no matter where it came from.

They ARE the same. Please know and understand some basic chemistry facts.

The difference is that its easier to consume more of that molecule if you consume it as HFCS.

The study above indicates that an overabundance of fructose is a potential problem, not that there is a difference between fructose in HFCS containing foods and fructose in other foods.

that the "hormones given women" are artificial, it isn't the artificiality of the hormones given women that is the problem. It's the fact that her body is being exposed to levels of hormone for an amount of time that is not natural. "Natural" modifying "amount of time," not "hormone." Seriously, is this not generally understood?

Roughly 55% fructose, 45% glucose. Very similar sugar profile to honey, coincidentally enough.

So there's no difference. Sorry. The problem - as a few others have repeatedly (yet in vain, sadly) tried to point out on this thread is NOT that HFCS is somehow a magical killing poison. Yes, it has fructose in it. So does honey and many quite "natural" fruits, veggies, and other sweet items found in nature. The problem is our over-consumption of sweeteners in general. Pure refined fructose - a very sweet and digestible sugar - is not good for you in large amounts. Go figure.

Unlike an apple you pick off a tree.

It's the same "natural" fructose molecule no matter where it came from. Thanks for agreeing with me.

the refining process for stevia powder makes use of the same solvents decried in the hfcs refining process.

:eyes:

in this thread.

What I said was true. Big difference there.

i believe it's more like 5-15.

1 med orange = 9 g. sugars, 12-oz mt. dew = 46 g sugars.

made me diabetic too. for any benefits though, there needs to be a real lifestyle change.

HFCS. i was a soda freak (not diet) and loved sweets. it doesn't run in my family. bad habits do catch up to you...

Or more specifically, cheap bread. Even the whole wheat bread I buy has HFCS in it. I'm still not sure why.

Quitting my Dr. Pepper habit was the best thing I ever did for my health.

I find I eat less of it AND it makes the house smell great!

I go to Krogers (union) and buy non-HFCS bread from the "whoops-we-baked-too-much" stand. It's cheap: $1.49 to $1.99 per loaf. Sure, it's not 99-cent white from Fair Market Value, but I'll pay a buck more to save mega-buck$ in health care later on!

Do you have a grocery store where you are? (I'm not being snarky - a lot of folks who live in rural areas only have Wal-marts, sorry to say, and don't have any other choice, but to drive multiple miles).

the industry spokespeople arrive. :D

drenched in sweat and I nearly faint. Regular sugar makes me cranky, but it doesn't make my knees give out and my clothing stick to me. Agave has no effect on me at all. Sugar is sugar huh? That's a lot of BS!

Gee some people are allergic to peanuts. BAN TEH PEANUTS. Just because your body is more sensitive to one product or another does NOT make you the GOD's GREEN TRUTH ABOUT sugar. READ A GODDAMN TEXTBOOK ON BIOLOGY!

to be intune to their body and how it reacts to different foods.

Doctors still believe the human body is simple enough to treat in parts instead of whole and even if they figure out the holistic approach, they want everyone to be cookie cutter. I use my physician as another useful resource only and many doctors don't care for that. Needless to say, I've fired a few doctors in my day. They aren't my daddy and they aren't God and I won't hang around either suffering such delusions. Life is too short.

:applause:

Excellent. "I use my physician as another useful resource only..." we need to be aware enough to know ourselves and when we can heal and when we need a doctor to help us.

The research keeps pouring in, and they've got their talking points.

I don't think they'll be able to fight this one.

I notice that some of the usual suspects are AWOL.

...all the conjecture from the scientific illiterates.

There's something for everyone I suppose.

Sugar, honey, molasses, agave, maple syrup, fruit juices, apples, and pears are all high in fructose. Give up anything sweet, I guess.

it says that cancer grows with fructose. So if you have cancer stay away from fructose IMHO.

it is already too late. Very aggressive.

I think the point is about HFCS that is contained in sodas which many people have replaced WATER with? HFCS is in a LOT of processed foods - and studies are showing that it is NOT healthy. The only people who benefit from these crap are the farmers and the food processors.

it is the processed from corn type. Emphasis on the word processed.

and that the molecule is identical whether it came from a piece of fruit or from HFCS?

We have a nutritional scapegoat, and we're gonna use it, dadgummit!

First, HFCS and sugar have about the same level of fructose, so if fructose feeds cancer cells, then table sugar that is used in sodas like Jones, or the Mexican Cokes people (including me) love is just as likely to feed those cancer cells. The study isn't condemning only HFCS.

Second, the study is demonstrating that fructose and glucose have different effects on pancreatic cancer cells. No one has ever claimed that HFCS is healthy, only that it's not as deadly as some claim and that it's no healthier than sugar. This study does NOT condemn HFCS any more than table sugar (unless there's more in the study than reported which isn't unlikely), so the arguments that HFCS laden drinks are more responsible for cancer or whatever other diseases than the "pure" sugar that it replaced haven't been proven. Both HFCS and sugar comprise glucose and fructose. However, since HFCS contains fructose in an independent form, and sugar contains fructose in a bond with sucrose and isn't accessible to the body until the bond is broken, they may discover that the delay in processing makes sugar safer. Still, that's not what the study has shown. It has shown (assuming its results are confirmed) that fructose feeds pancreatic cancer cells. So it doesn't condemn HFCS any more than it condemns pure cane sugar.

Third, the reason HFCS is so commonly used in America is because of import tariffs on sugar and because of government subsidies of corn farmers. Our government promotes its use by making sugar more expensive.

which also contains fructose, btw.

:rofl:

They're better for you anyway.

It's just the sulphenic acids that make it feel like you've got a mouthful of unhappiness

I beg to differ. The stinking rose has a sweet bouquet especially if it is slow cooked until carmelized. Yummmmmm.

Honey and molasses both have a more-or-less equal split between glucose and fructose, with molasses being mostly sucrose. The most common HFCS, HFCS-55, is 55% fructose and 42% glucose (plain corn syrup is 100% glucose, interestingly)

Beer does not contain sugar. Unless it's not completely finished.
All sugar in beer is converted to alcohol and CO2.

I also wonder why there is fructose in corn syrup but not in molasses(according to someone upthread). The sorghum plant is nearly identical to a corn plant, the sugars are extracted the same way, so why?

Corn Syrup (not HFCS) is primarily dextrose (glucose + water). Molasses is simply a by-product of sugar production and it is primarily sucrose, but still contains other sugars. It also contains nutrients not found in other common sweeteners.

In other news, I always keep molasses on hand and never brown sugar (because it turns to a brick if not sealed well). When I get a recipe that calls for brown sugar, I simply mix table sugar with molasses in a food processor until I get it as dark as I want it. That's how commercial brown sugar is made anyway.

too.

no way you can tell from this article what the point of the research was or what, if anything, the differential findings re fructose/glucose metabolism by tumor cells was, or what the significance is.

stop drinking sodas (diet is only marginally better) and make your own bread. voila! i know that's simplistic, but it's a start.

Apparently the sweeters tell the body to CONSUME, but there's nothing in the soda to consume. It throws everything out of whack, and makes us feel like eating more junk.

I used to drink diet soda.

20 minutes after drinking a soda w/aspartame, I would crave sugar like nobody's business. Once I cleaned out the leftover office doughnuts of the stale stuff nobody wanted.

there are several brands of whole-grain bread available that are relatively low in sugar. But as usual, they are much easier to find in the more affluent neighborhoods and cost more than the refined white crap so many Americans eat.

WF bought up another chain of health food stores in my area and then closed them down, meaning the closest "good" grocery store is now 10 miles away instead of 2.

:shrug: most pay later...healthy food is expen$ive

That's what I eat. Not everyone can afford it or get to it.

i wasn't necessarily talking about you either, those are just the facts, and it applies to many people.

to sweeten baked goods, not HFCS. One bakery near me only uses honey, stevia or agave.

i love the stuff.

i love the stuff.

buy organic, read labels, or make your own.

you put sugar (a small amount) in bread to help it rise.

but you don't need added sugar to make bread rise.

some kind of natural sweetener

getting it wet starts the process of breaking it down into sugars, food for yeast.

adding sugar just makes it rise faster.

A little bit of mead or honeywine, hard cider, or light ale/wine (about a quarter of a cup) was used to help start "white" breads or other higher class thin crusting/soft rise breads (Baugette or french type) when good yeast was out of season. The dark loaves - ryes and pumpernickles usually were started with a little bock beer or darker ale. Cottage loaves were started with whatever the locals could find - and were usually very heavy.

Made for an interesting taste, but you had to make sure you didn't overdo it with the alcohol and that you kept an eye on the riseing time and temperature, or the carbonation would overcome your bread, the fermentation process would eat itself out, and you'd end up with a brick instead of a light bread with a soft texture and a light, crisp crust.

Haele

Wikipedia: "Natural sources of fructose include fruits, vegetables, and honey."

Run! Run for your lives! :rofl:

it's all poison that's bound to cause your death some time around your 70s or 80s.

or in a lab...its fructose.

"Agave Nectar Worse Than We Thought" below.

L-fructose vs. D-fructose.

lecture by Robert Lustig, professor of pediatrics at the University of California:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

even if you read packages and try to take in as little as possible. Because all processed foods have it added. Even "natural" and "whole grain" and all that good stuff. Even those "natural sodas" that are better than the regular crap in that they have less other chemicals, but still have plenty of sugar. Read the labels. We are consuming excess sugar in just about everything that's processed in any way, no matter where you buy it.

Most people do not need added sugar in the diet at all. None. But try and tell that to the majority of the population hooked on it.

And I don't blame consumers--this has been foisted on them by the food industry. There is so little choice.

Just don't eat the Standard American Diet (SAD). It's the only diet proven to end your life early and, usually, quit sick.

Stick with food instead. A quick rule of thumb is if it comes out of a bag, box, or window, it's might not be food. This rule pretty much eliminates all junk food (which, face it, we all know ain't good fer ya) as well as most of the middle of the grocery store.

Michael Pollan.

In other words, eat straw! :eyes:


Just eat a variety of things in moderation.

:shrug:

Fructose induces transketolase flux to promote pancreatic cancer growth.

Liu H, Huang D, McArthur DL, Boros LG, Nissen N, Heaney AP.

Authors' Affiliations: Departments of Medicine and Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California; SiDMAP LLC; Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
Abstract

Carbohydrate metabolism via glycolysis and the tricarboxylic acid cycle is pivotal for cancer growth, and increased refined carbohydrate consumption adversely affects cancer survival. Traditionally, glucose and fructose have been considered as interchangeable monosaccharide substrates that are similarly metabolized, and little attention has been given to sugars other than glucose. However, fructose intake has increased dramatically in recent decades and cellular uptake of glucose and fructose uses distinct transporters. Here, we report that fructose provides an alternative substrate to induce pancreatic cancer cell proliferation. Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different; in comparison with glucose, fructose induces thiamine-dependent transketolase flux and is preferentially metabolized via the nonoxidative pentose phosphate pathway to synthesize nucleic acids and increase uric acid production. These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation. They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth. Cancer Res; 70(15); 6368-76. (c)2010 AACR.

Int J Oncol. 2010 Sep;37(3):615-22.
Fructose as a carbon source induces an aggressive phenotype in MDA-MB-468 breast tumor cells.

Monzavi-Karbassi B, Hine RJ, Stanley JS, Ramani VP, Carcel-Trullols J, Whitehead TL, Kelly T, Siegel ER, Artaud C, Shaaf S, Saha R, Jousheghany F, Henry-Tillman R, Kieber-Emmons T.

Department of Pathology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, USA. karbassi@uams.edu.
Abstract

Aberrant glycosylation is a universal feature of cancer cells, and certain glycan structures are well-known markers for tumor progression. Availability and composition of sugars in the microenvironment may affect cell glycosylation. Recent studies of human breast tumor cell lines indicate their ability to take up and utilize fructose. Here we tested the hypothesis that adding fructose to culture as a carbon source induces phenotypic changes in cultured human breast tumor cells that are associated with metastatic disease. MDA-MB-468 cells were adapted to culture media in which fructose was substituted for glucose. Changes in cell surface glycan structures, expression of genes related to glycan assembly, cytoskeleton F-actin, migration, adhesion and invasion were determined. Cells cultured in fructose expressed distinct cell-surface glycans. The addition of fructose affected sialylation and fucosylation patterns. Fructose feeding also increased binding of leukoagglutinating Phaseolus vulgaris isolectin, suggesting a possible rise in expression of branching beta-1, 6 GlcNAc structures. Rhodamine-phalloidin staining revealed an altered F-actin cytoskeletal system. Fructose accelerated cellular migration and increased invasion. These data suggest that changing the carbon source of the less aggressive MDA-MB-468 cell line induced characteristics associated with more aggressive phenotypes. These data could be of fundamental importance due to the markedly increased consumption of sweeteners containing free fructose in recent years, as they suggest that the presence of fructose in nutritional microenvironment of tumor cells may negatively affect the outcome for some breast cancer patients.

I think this relationship between fructose and pancreatic cancer has been known at least statistically for some time. I recall reading people of normal weight do show a relationship between fructose consumption and pancreatic cancer. The phenomenon above is true only for overweight/obese patients. As I remember, the difference seems to be that overweight/obese patients seem to have a higher insulin intolerance and that this seems to be the factor which drives pancreatic cancer formation.

D'oh

Eat clean.

...they're happy to sell toxins disguised as food. Then they will earn even more by selling toxic drugs. I don't know that it's so much a deliberate plot as simply a welcome bonus for them; unbounded greed drives them to use the cheapest possible ingredients in making their "food" (many of those ingredients are completely untested), and those ingredients also happen to cause obesity and illness. Which results in being able to then peddle "medicines" (which also are often inadequately tested for safety). They rake it in coming and going.

The only solution is to stop buying into the scam and eat real food as much as possible. The less adulterated, the better. But then we still have to watch out for GMOs. It's enough to make you paranoid.

Myself, I'm moving more and more in the direction of growing much of my own food, preferably heirloom varieties. And supporting local farmers and growers who are doing the same.

I might be better off just using regular sugar! Just a lot less of it.

http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/1604-agave-nectar-worse-than-we-thought.html

This is a very lengthy article but has detailed discussions of HFCS, how it's manufactured, effects on the body etc.

Also, agave nectar - how it's produced etc. Isn't agave marketed under "Stevia"? It isn't good for you either. (Section titled, "Just Say No to Agave). There's also discussion of the comparison between fructose in fruit and the fructose in agave nectar (L-fructose or levulose in fruit vs. D-fructose in agave).

One interesting statement: Leptin is a hormone that inhibits food intake. "Individuals who are genetically unable to produce leptin are massively obese;"


A lot to wade through. Some here with chemistry background may understand it better.

it's a bit over my head, but i've been trying to convince my parents that HFCS is bad - i'm gonna show um both the Reuters article and this one you posted - thnx for the info! :hi:

that should scare 'em.

" As explained by Russ Bianchi, Managing Director and CEO of Adept Solutions, Inc., a globally recognized food and beverage development company, the fructose in HFCS is therefore not recognized in the human Krebs cycle for primary conversion to blood glucose in any significant quantity, and therefore cannot be used for energy utilization.13 Instead, these refined fructose sweeteners are primarily converted into triglycerides and adipose tissue (body fat). In fact, a new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, found that obese people who drank a fructose-sweetened beverage with a meal had triglyceride levels almost 200 percent higher than obese people who drank a glucose-sweetened beverage with a meal.14

Chronic high triglycerides translate into increased insulin resistance, inflammation and heart disease. Thus, according to Bianchi, HFCS is a recipe for obesity, lack of energy and metabolic syndrome—the very portrait of the modern American addicted to a diet of HFCS-sweetened sodas."

part of which you quote above. Levulose is actually D-fructose and is the common isomer. It is not L-fructose.

Also, I could not find supporting evidence regarding differing metabolisms for the different isomers in the krebs cycle, other than what Russ Bianchi, "Managing Director and CEO of Adept Solutions, Inc., a globally recognized food and beverage development company", states in the article.

All in all, though, the critical and very basic error of the isomer nomenclature does, in my opinion, make the article questionable, as so much of the article depends on getting this point right.

Or a lobbying publication, a front for big Stevia, etc?

What is the motive to denounce HFCS? Cui buono?

I'll give you one hint for propaganda detection, and this article has more than this one.

When it is stated "200% increase", instead of "2x increase", your propaganda senses should start to tingle.

It'll tell you all you need to know about that source.

what they say about HFCS is consistent with what I've read from other sources. The agave nectar, not so much.

Two completely different plants.

Curbing your sweet tooth (I say, as I swill down a Dr. Pepper)

Seriously, none of these products are dangerous or harmful in moderation. Even with HFCS, the primary concern isn't th sugar itself, but the overconsumption of it. My ramen has HFCS in it. Ramen, noodles with a broth packet. I don't know if the stuff is in the noodles or the packet, but I have no idea why it would be in either, yet there it is.

I wonder if that is okay in large doses?

I eat a lot of those. Can they, too, be bad for you? I don't understand this.

Woops! What sugar is what? I'm confused. I don't know my sugars. Please explain this to me.

.

http://www.cancer.ucla.edu/Index.aspx?page=644&recordid=385&returnURL=%2Findex.aspx

'UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has more than 240 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education. One of the nation's largest comprehensive cancer centers, the Jonsson center is dedicated to promoting research and translating basic science into leading-edge clinical studies. In July 2010, the Jonsson Cancer Center was named among the top 10 cancer centers nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, a ranking it has held for 10 of the last 11 years.'

Sounds like a real craphole.


From the study:

'Although it’s widely known that cancers use glucose, a simple sugar, to fuel their growth, this is the first time a link has been shown between fructose and cancer proliferation, said Dr. Anthony Heaney, an associate professor of medicine and neurosurgery, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and senior author of the study. '

snip

'Heaney found that the pancreatic cancer cells could easily distinguish between glucose and fructose even though they are very similar structurally, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the cancer cells metabolized the sugars in very different ways. In the case of fructose, the pancreatic cancer cells used the sugar in the transketolase-driven non-oxidative pentose phosphate pathway to generate nucleic acids, the building blocks of RNA and DNA, which the cancer cells need to divide and proliferate. '

snip

'“I think this paper has a lot of public health implications,” Heaney said. “Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of HFCS in our diets.”

more at link

Jump to any conclusion you like. If I had cancer, I'd want to be treated at UCLA. You?

...we've seen the studies. We understand that the process that makes HFCS creates
a horrible, unhealthy substance.

People are getting it, and the number of people who are bamboozled or persuaded by these pro-HFCS
cheerleaders are drastically decreasing in numbers.

Of course this is legitimate research. Thank you for pointing that out.

I, for one, don't need to see any more research to understand that HFCS can compromise your health, cause diabetes
or lead to conditions that will ultimately kill you.

I could give a shit what the outcast "Oh.....it's not that bad" outliers say.

They're laughable by now. Like the people who encouraged everybody to play in the DDT bug-spray clouds. It's getting
ridiculous, and as more research pours in--they'll just eventually give up. Much like tobacco. They know all along
that it kills. They'll continue with the bamboozling as long as they're told to hit the messageboards with their
malarkey.

hfcs is "poison" -- also the death toll from this poison, please.

...to become obese--which in turn causes a host of deadly medical conditions--such as diabetes, coronary
heart disease and metabolic syndrome.

Those diseases and conditions cause death.

If that's not poison, I don't know what is. What? You don't like the word "poison"? How about "shit" or
"lethal, disease-causing chemical soup." Or how about "highly profitable, highly processed junk that diseases
our society while enriching industry vampires." So many choices.

When the tobacco executives were extolling the healthy virtues of cigarettes, many of us understood that they
were liars, and that cigarettes were poison--just like HFCS is. Just because someone doesn't have color-coded
file folders crammed with the research studies--at their fingertips--doesn't mean HFCS is fine and dandy. I've
read many, many articles about how HFCS is processed, and other article about how it is metabolized in the body.

I've researched this issue thoroughly. I'm satisfied.

I was a science writer for decades, and I'm pretty confident in my ability to read and form an opinion. Have you
read the article in this OP? I consider substances that directly feed and grow cancer cells to be "poison."

I'm certainly not going to wait for the people who SELL THIS SHIT AND PROFIT OFF OF IT--to tell the truth.

They never do.

A few years from now, just like the tobacco executives---Congress will line up the HFCS producers and force them to
say that HFCS doesn't cause diabetes and other ailments. Then, in a short time, when it is clear that this stuff
is poison--the video of these lying bastards will be used to shame them.

I don't need to wait for all of that. You'd have to be a lackey for the HFCS industry or someone who just doesn't
get it--to be a cheerleader for HFCS.

Are they paid by the post or the letter?

statement that can't be supported by any conclusive evidence.

if you were a serious writer you wouldn't be accusing people who disagreed with you of being lackeys for the corn syrup industry.

How about a study that refutes the study from the OP?

the study refers to.

then provide a couple of research papers "proving" that human beings get fatter on a diet providing x% of calories as fructose v. x% of calories as glucose, v. x% of calories as fat or protein.

no serious researcher would attempt to refute claims framed like "hfcs is fattening".

This study talks about fructose. How is the fructose in hfcs different than that in sucrose or that in fruits (its not).

It is over consumption of hfcs and simple sugars, in general, that is the problem.

People, apparently, need a target and hfcs is it. But by putting your focus on this scapegoat, you are missing the true issue.

in quantities that far outstrip the fructose in natural foods, and, as this study shows, fructose is metabolized differently than other sugars.

ANY use of HFCS is overconsumption.

and it is not over consumption by definition (although I believe we have an over consumption of both sucrose and hfcs), the "High fructose" in hfcs means that fructose has been added to the corn syrup, which is glucose.
Corn syrup on its own is glucose, so when you add around 50% fructose to it, it becomes high fructose corn syrup; it doesn't imply that the fructose is in some abnormally high concentration.

right behind me

what was the research question?

what is the significance?

can you answer after reading that article?

just the pop press display of that research. Anyone that has a hard time understanding how science can become politicized need look no further than this thread. The thread takes a rather basic science experiment and for many posts transforms it into a vast societal validation of previous biased conclusions, based on mostly information not true and more to the point not in the science paper. The paper itself is worth reading, the pop press spin... not so much.

containing no information at all.

cancer cells "slurp" up fructose? really?

cancer cells "slurp" up glucose too.

bfd.

The HFCS defenders on this thread tend and other similar discussions have (not too)-cleverly given themselves usernames and avatars involving communism, socialism and bodily fluids (a clear satirical poke at DU as a whole.)

They consistently attack using straw man arguments and coordinated 'anti science' rhetoric to confuse and muddle the message.

Take from the UCLA study what you will. Allow others to take what they will. Understand that I, for one, am onto you.

some make straw man arguments and some see hidden conspiracies, and of course some argue against blindly accepting scapegoat issues because you miss the true issue.

So bored by all the science dummies?

(In the human health sense)

How do you feel about the supplement business?

Modern medicine?

if you have an item you would like an assessment on, go ahead and post it.

On what aspects of the supplement business and modern medicine would you like my opinion?

the study has not been posted; a badly-written article with a hyperbolic title & no explanation of the actual research findings or their significance has.

cancer cells metabolize glucose for growth & division. that's a fact. that they also use fructose should come as no surprise, since both glucose & fructose are used in normal metabolism.

the article gives no explanation beyond that. it merely implies there's something scary about it without explanation.

Anyone who has ever had a PET scan knows this.

The patient is injected with radioactive glucose because cancer cells "slurp" up the glucose and show up brightly on the scan.

Only the docs call it "uptake", not "slurp".

... the foods / nutrients we eat and the way they contribute to damage and distortion to body functions. Some time back, I read with interest one of Andrew Weil's books (Harvard School of Medicine, but he's a major Botanist who studies aging, cellular functions and the way certain cultures eat.)

From his book, Healthy Aging-



Glycation is a bad thing. It cause premature aging and leads to diabetes. Therefore, the articles coming up such as this are part of an important area of research, so I'd be wise to the people who rush in and defend or find fault with talking about what cancer tumors do in the presence of sugar. The fact is, everything you ingest is broken down to its simplest form - glucose.

If you just keep listening to grandma (well, my grandma, anyway) and "eat many colored vegetables, greens, and drink water, not highly processed things, you'll be allowing your bodily functions to avoid damage and distortion associated with some metabolic processes.