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12-22-2003, 07:06 PM
Fructose and Fat Team Together
May 2002
Wow, can you believe summer is nearly here? Where did the year go? Since January I have been on the road nearly every week with fitness events, speaking engagements, conventions, and fundraisers to the point I didn’t realize that the year is nearly half over! And I haven’t been able to keep up with my monthly newsletters (remember when I used to write one every ten days?). Thank goodness for our fantastic T-Tapp Trainers who’ve been able to offer T-Tapp clinics and workshops coast to coast – do check website to see the most current clinics being offered each week (www.t-tapp.com/events (http://www.t-tapp.com/events)).
As of right now we have the following clinics scheduled:
May 31st-June 2nd in Canton, OH (Teresa Tapp), June 1st in Dallas, TX (Stephanie Bridges and Melissa Poe), June 6th-9th in Gaithersburg, MD (Teresa Tapp), June 8th-9th in San Francisco, CA (Lani Muelrath), June 15th in Houston, TX (Sherry Richards), June 27th-30th in New York (Lani Muelrath), July 11th in Chicago, IL (Teresa Tapp), July 26th-28th in Santa Ana Pueblo, NM (Lani Muelrath), August in Kansas (Sherry Richards).
Check the website for more details and keep checking each week for updates on additional clinics being offered throughout the summer. T-Tapp workout clinics are more than informative, they’re fun!
I want to extend a special thank you to all those who attended our first annual scholarship benefit event for the University of Houston, TX. Attendance was beyond expectation and we raised $12,000 for the fund! U of H - Downtown now calls it the T-Tapp Scholarship! We’ll be able to announce names of students who receive this scholarship each semester. So THANK YOU T-Tappers – you’re the best. Our next fund raising event for U of H - Downtown will be in March 2003 so come join us for fitness and fun.
Public Broadcasting Station produced a half hour documentary on T-Tapp as being the Wellness Workout that Works. This documentary will soon be available nationwide, but you can get a copy of the video from our office for only $5.00. They did a fabulous job explaining how T-Tapp lowers glucose quickly and enables the body to rebuild/repair itself with many health benefits in additional to quick inch loss/weight loss.
T-Tapp Fitness Cruise: Our fitness cruise to Nassau, Bahamas in March was so fun, but we discovered how the motion of the ocean took T-Tapp to a whole new level! The Balance Sequence and Thread the Needle humbled us all. Yes, even Hoe Downs became challenging in a new way – you should’ve seen all 95 of us traveling sideways with each knee lift as we moved through a tropical storm on our first evening! But once the waves calmed the rest of the trip was fantastic. Pictures will be posted on the website soon.
I’ll try to send a few extra newsletters this summer to make up for those missing in March and April. Thanks for understanding – there is so much to share, just not enough time to sit and write! Even though I’ve previously written about fructose being the hidden enemy in our body’s battle to fight fat, I wanted to elaborate a bit more with specific explanations, so you can make smarter choices this summer when fruit and tropical drinks are abundant. I even have references for those who wish to really dig deep into research done from 1978 to 1995.
Fructose and Fat Team Together – Why Fructose Equals Fat
Most people don’t realize it, but one of the most problematic carbohydrates is fructose. Fructose is a common simple sugar found in many foods. We all know fructose in one form or another. There is corn syrup, corn syrup solids, fruit sugar, honey and table sugar (sucrose). They all contain fructose. It’s generally inexpensive as a sweetener due to the low price of corn – from which it is derived. On a sweetness scale comparing sweeteners to sucrose (table sugar) which is considered a 1, fructose in its many forms can rate anywhere from 1.2 – 1.7. Fructose is a tremendous sweetener and requires lower amounts to achieve higher levels of sweetness compared to sucrose. This is one reason why you find fructose in so many refined foods and supplements. So, fructose is a fantastic sweetener, it is inexpensive, and is used heavily in refined foods and supplements – why does it make the body build fat more so than glucose?
Let’s cover a bit of biochemistry before we go further. Your liver absolutely adores fructose. It literally sucks it up like a big sponge that can never be completely saturated. Fructokinase (FK) is the enzyme responsible for the liver’s love affair with fructose. Once fructose enters the liver it cannot leave. This means that your liver must deal with the fructose and either convert it to glucose or use it to make fat. Where the fructose ends up, as glucose or fat, depends on the energy situation within your body. If you’re “well fed” then your body is in a “high energy” state. If you’re in a “high energy” state, you probably have enough glycogen (sugar) stored in your muscles and your liver, which means the fructose will then be used to make fat. But, if you’ve just finished a long bout of cardio (like T-Tapp to Tempo or one of the Maxi Max workouts) and have depleted muscle and liver glycogen, then the fructose will be used to produce glycogen in the liver, which will be delivered to the muscles when needed. Muscles cannot use fructose directly; it must be first converted to glycogen in the liver. Unfortunately, when consuming fructose you’re probably eating other foods that the muscles and liver can convert to glucose more easily than fructose. In this case fructose is NOT going to be converted into liver glycogen – instead it becomes fat. Therefore, fructose is more likely to be delivered towards fat production via Acetyl-CoA.
Acetyl-CoA is the building block for fat production. When your body is in a “high energy” state, Acetyl-CoA is used to produce fat. If you eat carbs during your meals and then add fructose that contains carbs (like a regular soda or sugar sweetened drink) you are encouraging the fat production process. As your fructose intake increases, so does the activity of the fat producing pathway. Fructose also causes an elevation in cholesterol. Acetyl-CoA is one of the building blocks for cholesterol. What all of this means is that when humans consume excess fructose it’s more likely to go towards the production of fat and cholesterol than towards the production of glucose to fuel your muscles.
By consuming excess fructose in combination with other carbohydrates, you might as well beg your body to make fat. Along with the increased production of fat comes an increase in cholesterol synthesis. The production of VLDLs (very low density lipoproteins) is elevated from the consumption of excess fructose. VLDLs are eventually converted to LDLs (low density lipoproteins) both of which are known as “bad cholesterol”. The higher your LDLs the greater your risk for cardio vascular disease. So not only is excess fructose likely to make you fatter, it’s also likely to make your bad cholesterol levels even worse.
Glucose is the preferred fuel for the body when it comes to carbohydrates. As mentioned, your muscles cannot use fructose directly. Fructose must be converted to glucose within the liver and then shipped out to the blood stream to eventually reach the muscles and other tissues. Fructose is only about half as good at replenishing muscle glycogen stores compared to glucose. Up to 60% of adults have problems when consuming high levels of fructose. Some people can get nauseated with dosages as low as 50g per day. As you discover how much fructose is in everything by reading labels, you’ll better understand why junk food often gives people upset stomachs!
Fructose does have some beneficial uses in the human body. Did you know that fructose is actually made within the seminal vesicles of men as a fuel for sperm? Consumption of fructose, however, does not effectively elevate blood insulin levels. Insulin is the master hormone when it comes to the deposition of fat. While fructose has no direct effect on fat production via insulin, it does increase fat production if the body is in a “high energy” state. Fructose is not directly useable by the muscle for replenishing glycogen storage, but it is better than glucose at replenishing liver glycogen. The liver loves fructose and during the first pass of blood through the liver, the majority of the fructose is absorbed. Glucose, on the other hand, is not swept out of the blood stream by the liver on the first pass. Athletes should be concerned with their consumption of fructose because glucose is a better fuel for working muscles over the short term. If you’re a long distance runner or biker and you want to replenish depleted liver glycogen after a long run/ride, you’d be better off consuming both some fructose and some glucose. By doing so, the glucose can feed your muscles glycogen while the fructose can feed your liver glycogen. But if body fat is your concern, then avoiding fructose is a good idea. If you’re controlling consumption of carbs, fats and proteins, it makes no sense to waste carbohydrate intake on fructose when it is not a preferred fuel for your body and can easily go towards fat production.
Read labels and educate yourself. When aiming to lose body fat, try to limit fructose to 10% or less of your overall carbohydrate consumption. Once desired goal has been attained restrictions can be lessened unless your body has problems with cholesterol. Now you can understand how one can still have high cholesterol even while limiting intake of fat – fructose is often the hidden enemy to our body’s wellness as well as weight management!
Best wishes to all – be your best!
Teresa Tapp
References:
1. MitsuzonoR, Okamura K, Igaki K, Iwanaga K, Sakurai M. Effects of fructose ingestion on carbohydrate and lipid metabolism during prolonged exercise in distance runners. Institute of Health and Physical Education, Kurume University. Applied Human Science 14:125-31, May 1995
2. Swanson JE, Laine DC, Thomas W, Bantle JP. Metabolic effects of dietary fructose in healthy subjects Department of Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 55:851-6, April 1992
3. Ahlborg G, Bjorkman O. Splanchnic and muscle fructose metabolism during and after exercise. Depart. Of Clinical Physiology, Huddinge Hospital, Sweden Journal of Applied physiology, 69:1244-51, Oct ‘90
4. Truswell AS, Seach JM, Thorburn AW. Incomplete absorption of pure fructose in healthy subjects and the facilitating effect of glucose. Depart. Of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. American Journal Clinical Nutrition, 48:1242-30, Dec 1988
5. Blom PC, Hostmark AT, Vaage O, Kardel KR, Maehlum S. Effect of different post-exercise sugar diets on the rate of muscle glycogen synthesis. Depart. Of Physiology, National Institute of Occupational Health, Oslo, Norway. Medical Science Sports Exercise, 19:491-6, Oct 1987
6. Maehlum S, Felig P, Wahren J. Splanchnic glucose and muscle glycogen metabolism after glucose feeding during post exercise recovery. American Journal Physiology, 235:E255-60, Sept 1978
May 2002
Wow, can you believe summer is nearly here? Where did the year go? Since January I have been on the road nearly every week with fitness events, speaking engagements, conventions, and fundraisers to the point I didn’t realize that the year is nearly half over! And I haven’t been able to keep up with my monthly newsletters (remember when I used to write one every ten days?). Thank goodness for our fantastic T-Tapp Trainers who’ve been able to offer T-Tapp clinics and workshops coast to coast – do check website to see the most current clinics being offered each week (www.t-tapp.com/events (http://www.t-tapp.com/events)).
As of right now we have the following clinics scheduled:
May 31st-June 2nd in Canton, OH (Teresa Tapp), June 1st in Dallas, TX (Stephanie Bridges and Melissa Poe), June 6th-9th in Gaithersburg, MD (Teresa Tapp), June 8th-9th in San Francisco, CA (Lani Muelrath), June 15th in Houston, TX (Sherry Richards), June 27th-30th in New York (Lani Muelrath), July 11th in Chicago, IL (Teresa Tapp), July 26th-28th in Santa Ana Pueblo, NM (Lani Muelrath), August in Kansas (Sherry Richards).
Check the website for more details and keep checking each week for updates on additional clinics being offered throughout the summer. T-Tapp workout clinics are more than informative, they’re fun!
I want to extend a special thank you to all those who attended our first annual scholarship benefit event for the University of Houston, TX. Attendance was beyond expectation and we raised $12,000 for the fund! U of H - Downtown now calls it the T-Tapp Scholarship! We’ll be able to announce names of students who receive this scholarship each semester. So THANK YOU T-Tappers – you’re the best. Our next fund raising event for U of H - Downtown will be in March 2003 so come join us for fitness and fun.
Public Broadcasting Station produced a half hour documentary on T-Tapp as being the Wellness Workout that Works. This documentary will soon be available nationwide, but you can get a copy of the video from our office for only $5.00. They did a fabulous job explaining how T-Tapp lowers glucose quickly and enables the body to rebuild/repair itself with many health benefits in additional to quick inch loss/weight loss.
T-Tapp Fitness Cruise: Our fitness cruise to Nassau, Bahamas in March was so fun, but we discovered how the motion of the ocean took T-Tapp to a whole new level! The Balance Sequence and Thread the Needle humbled us all. Yes, even Hoe Downs became challenging in a new way – you should’ve seen all 95 of us traveling sideways with each knee lift as we moved through a tropical storm on our first evening! But once the waves calmed the rest of the trip was fantastic. Pictures will be posted on the website soon.
I’ll try to send a few extra newsletters this summer to make up for those missing in March and April. Thanks for understanding – there is so much to share, just not enough time to sit and write! Even though I’ve previously written about fructose being the hidden enemy in our body’s battle to fight fat, I wanted to elaborate a bit more with specific explanations, so you can make smarter choices this summer when fruit and tropical drinks are abundant. I even have references for those who wish to really dig deep into research done from 1978 to 1995.
Fructose and Fat Team Together – Why Fructose Equals Fat
Most people don’t realize it, but one of the most problematic carbohydrates is fructose. Fructose is a common simple sugar found in many foods. We all know fructose in one form or another. There is corn syrup, corn syrup solids, fruit sugar, honey and table sugar (sucrose). They all contain fructose. It’s generally inexpensive as a sweetener due to the low price of corn – from which it is derived. On a sweetness scale comparing sweeteners to sucrose (table sugar) which is considered a 1, fructose in its many forms can rate anywhere from 1.2 – 1.7. Fructose is a tremendous sweetener and requires lower amounts to achieve higher levels of sweetness compared to sucrose. This is one reason why you find fructose in so many refined foods and supplements. So, fructose is a fantastic sweetener, it is inexpensive, and is used heavily in refined foods and supplements – why does it make the body build fat more so than glucose?
Let’s cover a bit of biochemistry before we go further. Your liver absolutely adores fructose. It literally sucks it up like a big sponge that can never be completely saturated. Fructokinase (FK) is the enzyme responsible for the liver’s love affair with fructose. Once fructose enters the liver it cannot leave. This means that your liver must deal with the fructose and either convert it to glucose or use it to make fat. Where the fructose ends up, as glucose or fat, depends on the energy situation within your body. If you’re “well fed” then your body is in a “high energy” state. If you’re in a “high energy” state, you probably have enough glycogen (sugar) stored in your muscles and your liver, which means the fructose will then be used to make fat. But, if you’ve just finished a long bout of cardio (like T-Tapp to Tempo or one of the Maxi Max workouts) and have depleted muscle and liver glycogen, then the fructose will be used to produce glycogen in the liver, which will be delivered to the muscles when needed. Muscles cannot use fructose directly; it must be first converted to glycogen in the liver. Unfortunately, when consuming fructose you’re probably eating other foods that the muscles and liver can convert to glucose more easily than fructose. In this case fructose is NOT going to be converted into liver glycogen – instead it becomes fat. Therefore, fructose is more likely to be delivered towards fat production via Acetyl-CoA.
Acetyl-CoA is the building block for fat production. When your body is in a “high energy” state, Acetyl-CoA is used to produce fat. If you eat carbs during your meals and then add fructose that contains carbs (like a regular soda or sugar sweetened drink) you are encouraging the fat production process. As your fructose intake increases, so does the activity of the fat producing pathway. Fructose also causes an elevation in cholesterol. Acetyl-CoA is one of the building blocks for cholesterol. What all of this means is that when humans consume excess fructose it’s more likely to go towards the production of fat and cholesterol than towards the production of glucose to fuel your muscles.
By consuming excess fructose in combination with other carbohydrates, you might as well beg your body to make fat. Along with the increased production of fat comes an increase in cholesterol synthesis. The production of VLDLs (very low density lipoproteins) is elevated from the consumption of excess fructose. VLDLs are eventually converted to LDLs (low density lipoproteins) both of which are known as “bad cholesterol”. The higher your LDLs the greater your risk for cardio vascular disease. So not only is excess fructose likely to make you fatter, it’s also likely to make your bad cholesterol levels even worse.
Glucose is the preferred fuel for the body when it comes to carbohydrates. As mentioned, your muscles cannot use fructose directly. Fructose must be converted to glucose within the liver and then shipped out to the blood stream to eventually reach the muscles and other tissues. Fructose is only about half as good at replenishing muscle glycogen stores compared to glucose. Up to 60% of adults have problems when consuming high levels of fructose. Some people can get nauseated with dosages as low as 50g per day. As you discover how much fructose is in everything by reading labels, you’ll better understand why junk food often gives people upset stomachs!
Fructose does have some beneficial uses in the human body. Did you know that fructose is actually made within the seminal vesicles of men as a fuel for sperm? Consumption of fructose, however, does not effectively elevate blood insulin levels. Insulin is the master hormone when it comes to the deposition of fat. While fructose has no direct effect on fat production via insulin, it does increase fat production if the body is in a “high energy” state. Fructose is not directly useable by the muscle for replenishing glycogen storage, but it is better than glucose at replenishing liver glycogen. The liver loves fructose and during the first pass of blood through the liver, the majority of the fructose is absorbed. Glucose, on the other hand, is not swept out of the blood stream by the liver on the first pass. Athletes should be concerned with their consumption of fructose because glucose is a better fuel for working muscles over the short term. If you’re a long distance runner or biker and you want to replenish depleted liver glycogen after a long run/ride, you’d be better off consuming both some fructose and some glucose. By doing so, the glucose can feed your muscles glycogen while the fructose can feed your liver glycogen. But if body fat is your concern, then avoiding fructose is a good idea. If you’re controlling consumption of carbs, fats and proteins, it makes no sense to waste carbohydrate intake on fructose when it is not a preferred fuel for your body and can easily go towards fat production.
Read labels and educate yourself. When aiming to lose body fat, try to limit fructose to 10% or less of your overall carbohydrate consumption. Once desired goal has been attained restrictions can be lessened unless your body has problems with cholesterol. Now you can understand how one can still have high cholesterol even while limiting intake of fat – fructose is often the hidden enemy to our body’s wellness as well as weight management!
Best wishes to all – be your best!
Teresa Tapp
References:
1. MitsuzonoR, Okamura K, Igaki K, Iwanaga K, Sakurai M. Effects of fructose ingestion on carbohydrate and lipid metabolism during prolonged exercise in distance runners. Institute of Health and Physical Education, Kurume University. Applied Human Science 14:125-31, May 1995
2. Swanson JE, Laine DC, Thomas W, Bantle JP. Metabolic effects of dietary fructose in healthy subjects Department of Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 55:851-6, April 1992
3. Ahlborg G, Bjorkman O. Splanchnic and muscle fructose metabolism during and after exercise. Depart. Of Clinical Physiology, Huddinge Hospital, Sweden Journal of Applied physiology, 69:1244-51, Oct ‘90
4. Truswell AS, Seach JM, Thorburn AW. Incomplete absorption of pure fructose in healthy subjects and the facilitating effect of glucose. Depart. Of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. American Journal Clinical Nutrition, 48:1242-30, Dec 1988
5. Blom PC, Hostmark AT, Vaage O, Kardel KR, Maehlum S. Effect of different post-exercise sugar diets on the rate of muscle glycogen synthesis. Depart. Of Physiology, National Institute of Occupational Health, Oslo, Norway. Medical Science Sports Exercise, 19:491-6, Oct 1987
6. Maehlum S, Felig P, Wahren J. Splanchnic glucose and muscle glycogen metabolism after glucose feeding during post exercise recovery. American Journal Physiology, 235:E255-60, Sept 1978