Another strike against consuming lots of fructose. New research suggests that fructose can mess with appetite control.

Due to price and convenience many of the commercially prepared foods that we eat contain high fructose corn syrup. In the last few years there has been a lot of bad press about consuming lots of fructose. Fructose is the main sugar in fruits and is also found in lower levels in sweet-tasting vegetables such as carrots and sweet potatoes. However, most people get much more fructose from sweetened products such as soda than they do from fruit.

It was suggested many years ago that consumption of high levels of fructose was tied to obesity. High levels of fructose have been suggested to increase the risk for diabetes, perhaps by increasing insulin resistance, and increase the levels of triglycerides in the blood. Now appetite control can be added to the reasons of why fructose may cause obesity.

This new research suggests that high levels of fructose may cause leptin resistance. (When cells become resistant to a signaling molecule or protein, such as leptin or insulin, they are no longer very responsive to normal levels of that signaling molecule or protein.)

Leptin is a hormone that signals the brain that enough has been eaten. So if the brain become resistant to leptin, it will not think that it has had enough to eat. So the brain will not signal to stop eating. Therefore, high levels of fructose may interfere with appetite control.

If this is correct, consuming high levels of fructose sweetened foods may contribute to losing or poor appetite control and then lead to an increased risk of obesity.

photo credit: aturkus
[tags]appetite control, fructose, leptin, obesity[/tags]