Archive for May 16th, 2009

Forget Swine Flu, THIS is Scarier: Franken Fats
by Tom Venuto

Although the swine flu hysteria has settled down a bit, it’s still making headlines, as it was front page news here in the New York City area today. The amount of panic over this public health concern is surprising when you consider how most people continue to do things to themselves every day that are far more likely to be deadly. For example, most people are still eating one specific type of food that has been deemed totally unfit for human consumption. Now THAT’s scary.

Alas, fear-mongering and bad news sell, regardless of the true threat level, so the media has been pummeling us with stories about the flu pandemic (and I couldn’t help noticing that many health experts are now arguing that this is no worse than common strains of flu).
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Don’t Believe the Hype – Fructose Truly is Much Worse Than Glucose

New research shows that there are big differences in how the sugars fructose and glucose are metabolized by your body. Overweight study participants showed more evidence of insulin resistance and other risk factors for heart disease and diabetes when 25 percent of their calories came from fructose-sweetened beverages instead of glucose-sweetened beverages.

A study looked at 32 overweight or obese men and women. Over a 10-week period, they drank either glucose or fructose sweetened beverages totaling 25 percent of their daily calorie intake.

Both the groups gained weight during the trial, but imaging studies revealed that the fructose-consuming group gained more of the dangerous belly fat that has been linked to a higher risk for heart attack and stroke. The fructose group also had higher total cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, and greater insulin resistance.
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