Tag Archives: Soda

How Much Junk Food Is Bad For Health?

Leave a reply

Join us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MichaelLustgartenPhD

Discount Links:
At-Home Metabolomics: https://iollo.com?ref=michael-lustgarten Use Code: CONQUERAGING At Checkout

Telomere Length, Epigenetic Testing: Trudiagnostic.pxf.io/R55XDv
Use Code: CONQUERAGING

NAD+ Quantification: https://www.jinfiniti.com/intracellular-nad-test/
Use Code: ConquerAging At Checkout

Green Tea: https://www.ochaandco.com/?ref=conqueraging

Oral Microbiome (Enter Code: ConquerAging): https://www.bristlehealth.com/?ref=michaellustgarten

At-Home Blood Testing (including ApoB): https://getquantify.io/mlustgarten

Diet Tracking: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=1390137&u=3266601&m=61121&urllink=&afftrack=

If you’d like to support the channel, you can do that with the website, Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mlhnrca

Conquer Aging Or Die Trying Merch! https://my-store-d4e7df.creator-spring.com/

——————————————————————————————————————————-Papers referenced in the video:

Ultra-processed food consumption and risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: Long-term results from the Framingham Offspring Study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37395366/

Dose–response meta-analysis of ultra-processed food with the risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality: evidence from prospective cohort studies https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36866803/

High Fructose Corn Syrup, Fruit and Health: A Perspective

2 Replies

Consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been linked to a variety of adverse health conditions, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type II diabetes, increased blood pressure, dislipidemia (i.e. decreased good cholesterol, HDL), and obesity (Nseir et al. 2010).

So, consumption HFCS is not good for health. But, I’d like to add a bit of perspective: the main sugar found in fruit is fructose! Is it possible to suffer from the same adverse metabolic effects by eating too much fruit? How much fruit would one have to consume to reach the levels of fructose found in soda?

One 20 oz. soda contains 240 calories and 65 g sugar. All of this sugar comes from HFCS, which is 55% fructose. To determine the amount of fructose in soda, we multiply 65 grams by 0.55, to obtain 35.75 grams of fructose.

How much fructose is contained within fruit? When normalized to the same amount of calories as a 20 oz. soda, bananas contain 16.4 g of fructose; strawberries, 20.1 g; cherries, 20.8 g; blueberries, 21.2 g; oranges (navels), 21.6 g; peaches, 24.0 g; raisins, 24.0 g; pears 27.4 g; grapes, 28.6 g; apples, 32.0 g. So, we see that most fruits, with the exception of apples contain about 10 grams less fructose than that found in a 20 oz. soda.

If you’re worried about the adverse metabolic effects from eating too much fructose, I suggest, upon your next visit to the doctor to pay close attention to your blood test results. If your triglycerides are higher than 60 mg/dL, if your HDL is low (~40 µM), and if you have liver enzyme (ALT and AST) readings higher than 20 U/L, cutting down fructose containing foods would be a good idea.

If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!

References:

Fructose values determined via http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

Nseir W, Nassar F, Assy N. Soft drinks consumption and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. World J Gastroenterol. 2010 Jun 7;16(21):2579-88.