Fructose can be found in 75 percent of packaged foods and drinks because it is less costly and 20 percent sweeter than raw sugar. Upon consuming and ingesting it into the body, it is converted into fat as it is metabolized in the liver, a process which is known as de novo lipogenesis (DNL).

Removing it from one’s diet can contribute to stopping hunger and sugar cravings as well as lose those extra pounds. As a matter of fact, Professor Jean-Marc Schwarz and his colleagues from Touro University in California said removing fructose from one’s daily meals can contribute to treating type-2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases without having to resort to prescription medicine.

In a study that was published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, Schwarz and his team found that 40 obese nine to 18-year-old Americans who got rid of fructose in their diets for eight days were able to lessen their high cholesterol, insulin resistance, and blood pressure.

“Importantly, these same participants had a 56 percent decrease in DNL during feeding. Overall, liver fat concentration decreased by 22 percent during fructose restriction. After as few as eight days a high fructose intake can increase both DNL and liver fat concentration,” Professor Schwarz said.

Researchers said the removal of fructose in one’s diet is important because compared with glucose, which metabolizes 20 percent in the liver and 80 percent throughout the rest of the body, fructose is 90 percent metabolized in the liver. (Related: Fructose results in more belly fat and less insulin-sensitive fat.)

For her part, New York City-based certified dietitian nutritionist Gina Keatley said that eating too much sugar or fructose causes a spike in insulin levels in the body, noting in an interview with Yahoo Beauty, “Insulin helps the body to process and store energy for current and future use. But after decades of these spikes, cells all over the body become nonreactive to the insulin, which can cause high blood sugar, kidney failure, and diabetes.”

You can avoid ingesting too much high-fructose corn syrup by avoiding flavored yogurt and mixed drinks and stopping the purchase of processed food altogether. You can also opt to make dressings at sauces at home so that you would be able to monitor exactly which ingredients go into your concoctions, researchers said.

You can also avoid juices and dried fruits because they are full of sugar, and eat only fresh fruits. Soda consumption should also be limited to a certain amount per week.

Product reformulations to cut back on fructose over the years

Purchase, New York-based multinational beverage corporation PepsiCo, Inc. intiated product reformulations with its Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback in 2009, when it decided to use natural sugars as its ingredients in its drinks.

Chicago, Illinois-based multinational confectionery conglomerate Kraft Foods Inc. took out all the high-fructose corn syrup out of its Capri Sun kids drink recipe in 2015 and replaced them with sugar.

A report that was released earlier this August by the United States Department of Agriculture showed that once again Americans are reverting back to sugar consumption rather than fructose consumption. This has probably something to do woth fructose being identified as the prime suspect in the spike of obesity in the country.

Read up on more stories about sweeteners at Sweeteners.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

Yahoo.com

FoodDive.com

Bloomberg.com