Is Sugar Toxic?

The whole article

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&sq=robert lustig&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print

I guess I have a more basic question about HFCS. Do you see any inherent problem with it? I get the impression from your closing statements that quantity, with an eye towards one’s personal metabolism, is the main danger to any type of sugar.

It's the amount of fructose going into the liver becoming triglycerides either making a fatty liver or contributing to obesity overall. Excess glucose can replace the glycogen, a carbohydrate that's the storage form of glucose, but it has a limited maximum amount, which is stored in the liver and muscles that's depleted with intense physical activity. Only when it gets too low that you switch into using free fatty acids do you start to deplete your fat stores, IIRC. It's a neet strategy for famines, but we haven't had too many lately.

It's not from a precautionary principle that makes me concernced. There's a good correlation between obesity, NAFLD, the epidemic of Type II Diabetes, formerly known as Adult Onset Diabetes, as well as MODY, Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young with the consumption of HFCS over the last few decades.

Parents can't use physical discipline with children any more, so the carrot and stick philosophy has been reduced to just carrots.

So I'm leary about HFCS-55. They use HFCS-42, 42 % fructose, in baked and processed stuff that you eat. I doubt an occasional treat will kill you.

The Truth About High Fructose Corn Syrup - The Science Behind the Sweetener

I thought that was a very interesting article. You might want to check comment# 1 on that thread. You may find an interesting link.

Any corrections are always appreciated.

Thanks again for the reply. I will check out the article.

It's the amount of fructose going into the liver becoming triglycerides either making a fatty liver or contributing to obesity overall. Excess glucose can replace the glycogen, a carbohydrate that's the storage form of glucose, but it has a limited maximum amount, which is stored in the liver and muscles that's depleted with intense physical activity. Only when it gets too low that you switch into using free fatty acids do you start to deplete your fat stores, IIRC. It's a neet strategy for famines, but we haven't had too many lately.

De novo fat synthesis is very limited in humans. It happens in the context of a hypercaloric diet and when the body's shift of substrate usage toward glucose and away from fats cannot take care of the excess glucose. The few days supply of glucagon, so-called animal starch, is a small buffer for excess glucose, used principally for intense physical activity and by the brain.

The basic fuel used by most of the body most of the time is fat. Intramuscular fat is continually replenished by free fatty acids that are continually being released from and returned to adipose tissue. Most of the fat stored in adipose tissue is dietary fat. That gets built up when energy balance becomes positive. In this context there is preferential burning of proteins and glucose because 1) there is no storage form of proteins and 2) there is only a few days' storage capacity for glucose. All you need to deplete fat stores is a negative energy balance. It only has to be a little each day to results in pounds of fat loss over the course of a year. This can be caused by a decrease of energy intake and/or an increase of energy use, either by increased lean body mass or increased physical activity. You don't need a famine.

The proposed "neet strategy" for famines above is a mischaracterization of a common daily phenomenon. But the idea that free fatty acids are used only when glucagon stores are depleted is simply not true.