Essential Ideas Regarding Fructose Health Risks

This week it's unachievable to miss out on the headlines that fructose can cause breast and pancreatic cancer. But does this really signify we have to dump our OJ down the drain and bury our dried dates and raisins, swearing never to deal with the fruit section at the supermarket again?

The grounds why fructose is linked to cancer is what all the reporting is leaving out. A simple basis is that sugar isn't just burned by cells. And also sugar becomes the backbone of DNA.

DNA is made up in part of extremely long chains of ribose sugar. It is much convenient for those cells to produce ribose from fructose than it is for them to create it from any other source. On the other hand, the method is not automatic.

The transformation of fructose to pentose only transpires when there are also fluctuations in an enzyme called transketolase. Enzyme reacts to extra sugar, not necessarily by fructose sugar. The presence of fructose is not only the reason that triggers the creation of huge amounts of ribose. Consuming too many carbs in general is one of those. There's a unexpected excitement for the holistic cane sugar, or sucrose, but it's vital to bear in mind that sucrose is a chemical mixture of glucose and fructose. You don't avoid fructose by eating cane sugar.

But what does all this have to do with cancer, anyway?

In the growth period of cancer advancement, cancer cells need to make lots of DNA so they can divide to create lots of cancer cells. Fructose does not cause cancer. It does not really "fuel" cancer. It provides the raw materials for cancer cell (and healthy cell) DNA. If you consume tiny amounts of fructose, you don't trigger the massive production of ribose in cancer cells.

There is a difference, of course, both in high-fructose corn syrup and fructose from fruit. "High" fructose doesn't mean 100% fructose. It's also glucose, just in a different ratio than table sugar. Using high-fructose corn syrup doesn't dry out the same way that cane sugar does, and it's a effective reason for growing plenty of corn, selling lots of seed and fertilizer and tractors, creating a new commodity for hedge funds, and so on. Consuming no more than about 15 grams (3 spoons) up to twice a day won't trigger the nasty reactions that accelerate cancer proliferation, and eating a single piece of fruit earlier in the day and another piece of fruit later in the day won't, either.

Dunking a dozen doughnuts, on the other hand, is almost a prescription for cancer advancement. It's just important to remember that with fructose as with everything else, stay within a healthy limit. And it's probably best to avoid high-fructose corn syrup altogether, if only to send the hedge fund managers, GMO creators, and pesticide purveyors a lesson.

Robert Rister grew up in a farming family who raised 1,000 acres of cotton, sorghum, vegetables, and corn, in addition to maintaining an herb garden for four generations. Chemist, herbalist, and formulator of natural health products, Robert is the author or co-author over twenty books on natural health, as well as Healing without Medication and the forthcoming Coconut Grove Diet.