- A new study by Dr Robert Lustig shows obese children significantly reduced their risk of heart disease after cutting out fructose.
- While the study isn’t perfect, it backs up previous links between sugar and heart disease.
- Is this the proof we need that fructose, not fat, is the problem?
The new research – helmed by sugar-free pioneer and Sarah’s mate Dr Robert Lustig – showed giving up fructose for just NINE days reduced the risk of heart disease so much that one dangerous cholesterol marker actually disappeared.
Participants (aged nine to 18) showed significant drops in triglycerides (-33 per cent) and apoC-III proteins (-49 per cent) – both associated with heart disease. Meanwhile, markers for “bad cholesterol” vanished and good cholesterol particles increased!
Just like Lustig’s previous research on fructose and metabolic syndrome in obese children, the conditions were tightly controlled so that only fructose consumption was affected. The children were given the same amounts of calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates as their typical diets.
While the study isn’t exactly gold science (it only ran for nine days and involved a diet of pizza and bagels) it is the first to so clearly isolate fructose as a cardiovascular risk. It also reinforces previous, bigger studies that link sugar consumption to heart disease.
With scientists also increasingly exonerating fats in the war against heart disease – and so much science weighing up against the sweet stuff – could this study be the push officials need to finally switch their targets to fructose for good?
What do you make of this study? Further proof that marketing sugary junk food at kids needs to stop?
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