Fructose or Glucose?

Overview
There are many different sweeteners that you can add to your foods, and that appear as ingredients in prepared and processed foods. If you're interested in eating as healthy a diet as possible, you may be wondering whether glucose, fructose, both or neither are healthy components of food. The two sugars are closely chemically related, but have some different effects in the body.

Glucose Chemistry
Glucose is a naturally occurring sugar made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
Rift Gold It's chemically classified as a monosaccharide, meaning that it's made up of a single sugar unit. In nature, it's found either on its own, or chemically bonded to other molecules of glucose and other monosaccharides to form larger sugars and starches. Natural sources of glucose include fruit, table sugar, and any starchy food, including grains and vegetables such as beans and potatoes.

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Fructose Chemistry
Like glucose, fructose is a monosaccharide made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, explain Drs. Mary Campbell and Shawn Farrell in their book "Biochemistry." It's closely related to glucose, and like glucose, your cells can use fructose to provide energy. Natural sources of fructose include fruit and table sugar, RIFT Platinum which is extracted from certain plants including sugar cane and beets. There are no natural sources of fructose independent of and apart from glucose -- any time you eat fructose that occurs naturally in your food, you're also eating glucose.

Cellular Use and Health
Both fructose and glucose -- in appropriate amounts and in the proportions in which they occur in nature -- are healthy and good for you. Your cells use these monosaccharides to provide energy that fuels motion and other cellular processes, explain Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry." rift gold If you overconsume glucose or fructose, you store the excess of either as body fat, which increases your risk of obesity. You're not likely to overconsume glucose or fructose if you eat whole, unsweetened foods, but if you add glucose, fructose or table sugar to your food, you increase your risk.

Other Issues
In addition to the risk of obesity, research suggests that when you consume fructose in proportions greater than those found in nature -- or in particularly large amounts -- you can increase your risk of heart disease and other disease processes. RIFT Platinum A 2000 article published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" found that consumption of large quantities of fructose increased subjects' triglyceride levels, which increases risk of heart disease. TERA Gold The authors suggested glucose as a more appropriate substitute. Further, a 2004 article in the same journal noted that fructose consumption was strongly associated with increased risk of obesity. For this reason, you may wish to avoid adding sweeteners to your food, or choose glucose or table sugar when you do add sweeteners.