OHSU study finds that fructose impacts brain differently than glucose
By Brian Stimson Of The Skanner News
February 17, 2011
That soft drink in your hand is telling your brain to do things.
Researchers at Oregon Health and Sciences University say that a certain kind of sugar – fructose – is found to affect a part of your brain in a different way than other kinds of sugars.Fructose is an extremely common sugar found naturally in nearly everything we eat. It’s an essential nutrient, but it’s overabundance in processed food has also earned the ire from nutrition scientists who say it is partially to blame for the obesity epidemic in the United States.
For processed food manufacturers, High Fructose Corn Syrup has become a staple ingredient in everything from bread to soda. To fully understand what the study means – and doesn’t mean – it’s important to understand the basics of sugar.
Basic white sugar – which is typically derived from either sugar beets or sugar cane – is made up of pure sucrose. Sucrose is a carbohydrate formed from the combination of the molecules of fructose and glucose. When you consume white sugar, for example, your body then breaks down the sucrose (sugar) into its two parts – fructose and glucose.
The research found that fructose and glucose – despite being very similar on a molecular level — affect areas of the brain in different ways. Using a “functional MRI,” which measures brain activity in real time, researchers found that neither fructose nor glucose affected the area of the brain that regulates food intake.
In test subjects injected with pure glucose, the areas of the brain that control responses to food taste, smells and pictures, were activated. Fructose, on the other hand, inhibited these same areas of the brain.
Lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Purnell says the research partially answers why two similar sugars affect the brain in different ways. MORE...
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