Dietary fructose induces endotoxemia and hepatic injury in calorically controlled primates

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2013/06/19/ajcn.112.057331.abstract (actual study from AJCN)

http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/article01171-dietary-fructose-liver-damage.html (write-up at sci news.com)

From the article:

“What surprised us the most was how quickly the liver was affected and how extensive the damage was, especially without weight gain as a factor. Six weeks in monkeys is roughly equivalent to three months in humans,” Dr Kavanagh said.
“In the high-fructose group, the team found that the type of intestinal bacteria hadn’t changed, but that they were migrating to the liver more rapidly and causing damage there. It appears that something about the high fructose levels was causing the intestines to be less protective than normal, and consequently allowing the bacteria to leak out at a 30 percent higher rate.”


From the study:

Results: Monkeys allowed ad libitum HFr developed HS in contrast to the control diet, and the extent of ectopic fat was related to the duration of feeding. Diabetes incidence was also increased. Monkeys that consumed calorically controlled HFr showed significant increases in biomarkers of liver damage, endotoxemia, and MT indexes and a trend for greater hepatitis that was related to MT; however, HS did not develop.

Conclusions: Even in the absence of weight gain, fructose rapidly causes liver damage that we suggest is secondary to endotoxemia and MT. HS relates to the duration of fructose consumption and total calories consumed. These data support fructose inducing both MT and ectopic fat deposition in primates.


One big thing that stands out to me as a possibility was the inclusion of flour. Without knowing what the control diets "complex carbs" are, we can't know if that included whole wheat. But if it did not, then I think its lazy to have not examined the possibility of averse effects of wheat flour on gut barrier function.

As far as I know fat raises endotoxin systemically; and the more saturated the fat the stronger the effect.

It is not necessarily a secret either that feeding fructose without phytochemicals (i.e. antioxidants) is not a good idea.

Overall a bad study design as per usual, I cannot imagine that a diet comprised of eggs, pork fat, fructose and flour is a monkey's natural (or desirable) diet (nor that of a human by the way) - it's highly inflammatory.

I agree. I still can't understand why the protein and carb sources would change between the control and the treatment group, it kinds of eliminates the purpose of a control. And I also agree that diet is very poorly balanced, too high in fat, and flour...really? Sounds like these guys were purposefully setting up the treatment group for poor numbers. I'd like to see a study with the same diets and fructose only varied, along with supplementation with some flavanoids to approximate the way we'd probably get our fructose. Although if we are talking the SAD diet, then just straight fructose is probably closer to the mark.

ppm wrote:
It is not necessarily a secret either that feeding fructose without phytochemicals (i.e. antioxidants) is not a good idea.

Ppm, that makes sense. Does the same apply to sucrose? I'm not aware of this idea, could you please post a link/ study or two, and maybe a video if you have the time?

Thanks.

9rugrats5 wrote:I'm not aware of this idea, could you please post a link/ study or two, and maybe a video if you have the time?

Well, time is an issue and I do not want to waste a lot of it on this (after all, there is google and you know..), so, here is a small excerpt of CS's view on the problem (see link for more) which summarises it all well:

"In any event, HFCS or sugar can be dealt with easier if there are nutrients such as sulfur, magnesium, iodine and selenium. Plant antioxidants can further mitigate the effects of these sugars. To make it safer under high load conditions (drinking or eating foods that are loaded with it), I will take enough plant based antioxidants to improve how the liver deals/metabolizes with the paltry amounts that are absorbed in humans (compared to our rat counterparts)."

https://immortalhair.forumotion.com/t9064-causticsymmetry-on-fructose#92216

Also see here: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/91/4/940.abstract

9rugrats5 wrote:
Ppm, that makes sense. Does the same apply to sucrose? I'm not aware of this idea, could you please post a link/ study or two, and maybe a video if you have the time? Thanks.

On top of Ppm's points, its useful to consider how sugar is encountered in the natural world, i.e. not how it has been encountered since the industrial revolution and mass manufacturing of foodstuffs. You almost never find a source of sugar containing just pure product like it is included in a lot of processed food today. It is almost always packaged in something containing fiber and other bioflavanoids. What is the significance of this? The fiber increases the digestion time by increasing the distance the sugars will travel in the gut, lowering the glycemic impact and the oxidative stress on the cell. A lot of the phenolic groups also have the effect of inhibiting enzymes that hydrolyze carbohydrate, again lowering the impact on blood sugar.

A lot of people argue the exception is maple syrup as it does not have any fiber. Firstly, maple sugar isn't quite how you find it in nature, even the raw stuff. You probably wouldn't enjoy using straight xylem sap, which is what syrup is refined from. Nevertheless, it has a pretty rich history. The algonquian indians were really fond of it, and I've heard tell they discovered it by cooking venison in xylem sap, finding that it tasted much better than cooking the venison in water. (PS, if you haven't tried vension cooked with maple syrup, do it).

What a lot of people don't realize is that maple syrup is relatively high in calcium, potassium, zinc, and manganese. Manganese helps utilize carbohydrate and is needed to synthesize SOD. Syrup also contains phenol antioxidants that help buffer the damage from sugar, chemicals like vanillin. When the sap is boiled, an antioxidant called quebecol is also produced.

Am I just missing something, or did they neglect to say what form the fructose took? Was it whole fruit or were the monkeys being fed (for instance) HFCS mixed with flour?

I'm a tad concerned about this because I just started another Peat trial on myself. I'm eating among other things eggs and quite a bit of OJ. Some small amount of pork (including bacon) because I like it, not because of Peat. This study seems to contravene a lot of Peat's recs, even if I'm not doing the flour.

However, this does seem to strengthen the fairly well accepted notion that large amounts of sugar, flour, and saturated fats laced with PUFA's (from the pork and eggs) when combined are deadly. Maybe the designers are simply drawing the wrong conclusion from the data.

Whodathunkit, I tend to agree with your last point. I think when you have a combination of wheat flour, saturated fat, and higher sugar, you are probably going to run into problems.

From both the data I've seen and just good ol' experience, I think large amounts of either carbohydrate and/or fat in one meal is a bad thing. Of course, that all depends on your energy needs. If I workout intensely, I can get away with eating just about whatever the hell I want for a period of a few hours afterward.

But in general, assuming you are glycogen-replete and not post-workout, I think its wise to keep the total fat and total carbs in any given meal lower and simply eat more interspersed meals. [If you are intermittent fasting, which can have its own benefits, this won't apply, but I think intermittent fasting is best for body recomp and perhaps not for total health]

For one, a high fat meal has a big impact on endotoxemia. High carbohydrate can have a negative influence on insulin levels and blood sugar. I agree with a great deal of Peat's work, but the amount of carbohydrate I'm consuming has to be determined by my activity level and insulin sensitivity. Some is required to abate stress, but do I think drinking a liter of OJ in a sitting is a bad idea? Yes I do. I think fruit juice can be a slippery slope. Without the fiber content, it can be more inflammatory. Not to mention, many people don't digest fructose well in large amounts. Anything more than around 30-40 grams in one sitting and problems result. Some people can handle more.

But again, so many things effect how you handle sugar. You thyroid hormone levels are a big one.

Thanks, ppm, I didn't mean for you to spend time researching things for me, but merely if you had some links bookmarked, which people sometimes do. I don't think the HFCS post or the OJ study are particularly relevant to the phytochemical statement you made, but I appreciate your tip and will carry forward from here.

Anthony, thanks, the presence of fibres alongside natural sugars is a great point too. Particularly sugar beet and sugarcane, the primary sources of refined sugar, are highly fibrous. Could you please elaborate on "phenolic groups also have the effect of inhibiting enzymes..." Which phenolic group did you mean, are they a type of antioxidants, and the inhibited enzymes that you mention, are they found in stomach, small intestine, or large intestine?

When I go to Europe, I'm at out luck when I need a HFCS fix...so, I then turn to Pomegranate juice for a healthier source of fructose.

Pomegranate juice has been very well documented to perform various health benefits...everything from reducing arterial plaque to fighting pathogens.

This will probably shed some light on some protective mechanisms.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3671682/

Rugrats,

Here is the study: http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-79955022757&origin=inward&txGid=905AA841B1D9396D273955F25F371595.WXhD7YyTQ6A7Pvk9AlA%3a2

You'll notice it is a concentrated extract of maple syrup, but you would still find these phenolic compounds in regular maple syrup. The enzymes it inhibits are a-glucosidase and a-amylase, both enzymes that cleave disaccharides into monosaccharides. This is a good thing if you are diabetic or insulin resistant as you blunt the high blood sugar response from simpler sugars like sucrose. A lot of plants have chemicals like this. In fact, luteolin has been shown to reduce these enzymes by almost 40%!

But importantly, taking one of these inhibitors when consuming starch might be a bad thing. A little bit of sugar isn't a problem, but with a very starchy meal like a bunch of sweet potatoes, you're going to help make sure those make further into the intestine, where they can feed the gut bacteria. For a lot of people, that would be a problem. Generally, with something starchier and more slowly digesting like a sweet potato, avoid these inhibitors.

The enzymes being inhibited are produced by the pancreas, but a-amlylase is in saliva too.

anthonyspencer54 wrote:Rugrats,

Here is the study: http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-79955022757&origin=inward&txGid=905AA841B1D9396D273955F25F371595.WXhD7YyTQ6A7Pvk9AlA%3a2

You'll notice it is a concentrated extract of maple syrup, but you would still find these phenolic compounds in regular maple syrup. The enzymes it inhibits are a-glucosidase and a-amylase, both enzymes that cleave disaccharides into monosaccharides. This is a good thing if you are diabetic or insulin resistant as you blunt the high blood sugar response from simpler sugars like sucrose. A lot of plants have chemicals like this. In fact, luteolin has been shown to reduce these enzymes by almost 40%!

But importantly, taking one of these inhibitors when consuming starch might be a bad thing. A little bit of sugar isn't a problem, but with a very starchy meal like a bunch of sweet potatoes, you're going to help make sure those make further into the intestine, where they can feed the gut bacteria. For a lot of people, that would be a problem. Generally, with something starchier and more slowly digesting like a sweet potato, avoid these inhibitors.

The enzymes being inhibited are produced by the pancreas, but a-amlylase is in saliva too.

Nice inference and explanation from that study, Anthony, appreciate it. Again, it seems, nature ensures some kind of counterbalance in sugar containing plants. I tried to see if phenolic compounds are found in sugarcane and it seems they are aplenty. This study might be of interest-

Antioxidant Activity of Phenolics Compounds From Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum L.)
Juice
ftp://da.montes.upm.es/Trabajos%20y%20apuntes/QUIMICA%20DE%20LOS%20PRODUCTOS%20FORESTALES%20NO%20LE%D1OSOS/Trabajo/art3.pdf

This suggests to me that upon smelling the sugars or syrups, if they have an aromatic smell, it might be an indicator of the phenolic content and quality of the products. So, it may be a good idea to select one's sweetener that has some pungency and some fibre in it. Good quality jaggery immediately comes to mind.

About starchy foods, do you mean that incorporating enzyme inhibitors like the said phenolic compounds, might cause the starches to break down too little by the time they reach the gut?