At my clinic, we have seen many
patients come for therapy. The majority often complained of serious
arthritic pain in the joints, numbness of the hands and feet, diabetes,
general body fatigue and more.
When their dietary consumption is
analysed, the results point to a common factor: fructose intolerance as a
result of eating too many fruits.
The patients believed they were
observing healthy habits by eating plenty of oranges, water melon, apple
or even fruit smoothies or cocktails.
They are usually shocked when the
bioenergetics testing results indicate that such fruits are weakening
and stressing many of their organs.
When we tell them that they are fructose
intolerant, they are astonished to find the pain and all other problems
disappear as they undergo detoxification and stay away from fruits.
We explain to them that all the sweet
fruits that they are consuming have high fructose content with its
attendant consequences. Indeed, the myth that fruits are good for you is
not based on medical advice. It is the product of commercial marketing.
Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple
ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants, where it is often bonded to
glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose.
It is one of the three dietary
monosaccharides, including glucose and galactose, that are absorbed
directly into the bloodstream during digestion.
Fructose is found in honey, tree and
vine fruits, most sweet fruits, flowers, berries, and most root
vegetables. High fructose corn syrup is a mixture of glucose and
fructose. All forms of fructose, including fruits and juices, are
commonly added to foods and drinks for taste enhancement, and for
browning of some foods, such as baked goods.
Fructose exists in foods either as a
monosaccharide (free fructose) or as a unit of a disaccharide (sucrose).
Free fructose is absorbed directly into the intestine. Then it enters
the hepatic (liver) portal vein.
All three dietary monosaccharides are
processed in the liver. By contrast, glucose tends to pass through the
liver and can be metabolised anywhere in the body. Uptake of fructose by
the liver is not regulated by insulin – the blood sugar regulating
hormone.
It is well known that high fructose
consumption stresses the liver and encourages the formation of excessive
fat and bad cholesterol. Compared with the consumption of high glucose
beverages, drinking high-fructose beverages with meals results in lower
circulating insulin and leptin levels and higher ghrelin levels after
the meal.
Since ghrelin increases appetite, some
researchers suspect that eating large amounts of fructose increases the
likelihood of appetite and therefore causing weight gain.
Dr. Robert H. Lustig, a professor of
paediatrics and an obesity specialist at the University of California,
San Francisco, raises the alarm in an article published in The New York Times.
Today we average 55 grammes per day (73
grammes for adolescents) in consumption of sugar. Sugar in the quantity
that we consume it today is highly toxic and causes all sorts of serious
problems.
The increase in fructose intake is
worrisome, says Lustig, because it suspiciously parallels increase in
the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and a new condition called
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Another effect of high fructose intake is insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.
People and food companies replace fat,
often healthy fat, with sugar, almost always refined sugar. But this
sort of low-fat diet-one rich in refined sugar and thus in fructose – is
really a high-fat diet when you look at what the liver does to
fructose, said Dr. Lustig.
You cannot metabolise fructose like most
other sugars, and your cells cannot use fructose as a fuel. Instead,
your liver has to dispose of all the fructose that you consume. Fructose
has to be processed in a similar way to another carbohydrate, alcohol.
Your liver slowly converts fructose to
triglycerides and several toxic by-products. In the same way as alcohol,
fructose puts a heavy load on your liver. It is postulated that
excessive fructose can cause liver cirrhosis!
Fructose reacts with proteins to form
highly toxic and ageing advanced glycation end products. They hasten
your ageing, damage your skin, stiffen blood vessels and cause kidney
disease.
Fructose also reacts with
polyunsaturated oils to form toxic products. Obesity, metabolic
syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, bacterial and
fungal infections are also outcomes of a high-fructose diet.
Also, most people cannot properly digest all the fructose they eat every day from an apparently normal and healthy diet.
If you eat large quantities of fruit and
thinking that it is healthy, well think again. Fructose is the sugar
contained in fruits in high quantities. A normal healthy adult can
properly digest 25-50 grammes of fructose per day.
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