Fructose and hepatic insulin resistance

There is an epidemic fatty liver and non alcoholic liver disease worldwide. This is the commonest cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer which was. previously mainly related to chronic alcoholism

Excessive caloric intake in a form of high-fat diet (HFD) was long thought to be the major risk factor for development of obesity and its complications, such as fatty liver disease and insulin resistance. Recently, there has been a paradigm shift and more attention is attributed to the effects of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) as one of the culprits of the obesity epidemic and fatty liver and cirrhosis

There is evidence fructose intake with development of hepatic insulin resistance the pathways by which fructose that the the metabolism of fructose is in the liver and high intake of fructose may be the cause of the epidemic fatty liver and its consequence

Dietary fructose intake strongly promotes hepatic insulin resistance via complex interplay of several metabolic pathways, at least some of which are independent of increased weight gain and caloric intake.

The current evidence shows that the fructose, but not glucose, component of dietary sugar drives metabolic complications and contradicts the notion that fructose is merely a source of palatable calories that leads to increased weight gain and insulin resistance.

Where does HFCS come from?

HFCS is derived from corn starch. Starch itself is a chain of glucose (a simple sugar) molecules joined together.When corn starch is broken down into individual glucose molecules, the end product is corn syrup, which is essentially 100% glucose.

To make HFCS, enzymes are added to corn syrup in order to convert some of the glucose to another simple sugar called fructose, also called “fruit sugar” because it occurs naturally in fruits and berries. HFCS is common in many many processed foods because it is very sweet and may be one factor for the increased insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, cirrhosis and liver cancer in the world

Fruits has very much less fructose, and extremely unlikely to lead to these complications unless eaten in excess.