Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

At a glance: The STEP trials

A round-up of the STEP phase 3 clinical trials evaluating semaglutide for weight loss in people with overweight or obesity.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
European Journal of Nutrition
Published in: European Journal of Nutrition 2/2016

Open Access 01-11-2016 | Original Contribution

Controversies about sugars consumption: state of the science

Authors: James M. Rippe, Ascensión Marcos

Published in: European Journal of Nutrition | Special Issue 2/2016

Login to get access

Abstract

Introduction

Few topics in nutrition generate more controversy and debate than the putative associations between added sugars and health. With this as background, a group of researchers in the area of sugars and health gathered at the European Nutrition Conference (FENS) in 2015 to discuss these controversies and provide evidence-based science. The purpose of the current article was to provide a brief summary of some of the highlights from each of the presenters and serve as an Introduction to the supplement which contains full articles based on their presentations.
Literature
1.
Olsen NJ, Heitmann BL (2009) Intake of calorically sweetened beverages and obesity. Obes Rev 10:68–75CrossRef
2.
Malik VS, Schulze MB, Hu FB (2006) Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr 84:274–288
3.
Malik VS, Popkin BM, Bray GA, Despres JP, Willett WC, Hu FB (2010) Sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis. Diabetes Care 33:2477–2483CrossRef
4.
Bray GA (2012) Fructose and risk of cardiometabolic disease. Curr Atheroscler Rep 14:570–578CrossRef
5.
Marckmann P (2000) Dietary treatment of thrombogenic disorders related to the metabolic syndrome. Br J Nutr 83(Suppl 1):S121–S126
6.
Bray GA, Popkin BM (2013) Calorie-sweetened beverages and fructose: what have we learned 10 years later. Pediatr Obes 8:242–248CrossRef
7.
Feig DI, Soletsky B, Johnson R (2008) Effect of allopurinol on blood pressure of adolescents with newly diagnosed essential hypertension. JAMA 300:924–932CrossRef
8.
Nguyen S, Choi H, Lustig R, Hsu C (2009) Sugar-sweetened beverages, serum uric acid, and blood pressure in adolescents. J Pediatr 154:807–813CrossRef
9.
Rippe JM, Angelopoulos TJ (2015) Fructose containing sugars and cardiovascular disease. Adv Nutr 6:430–439CrossRef
10.
Basu S, Yoffe P, Hills N, Lustig RH (2013) The relationship of sugar to population-level diabetes prevalence: an econometric analysis of repeated cross-sectional data. PLoS One 8:e57873CrossRef
11.
Goran MI, Ulijaszek SJ, Ventura EE (2013) High fructose corn syrup and diabetes prevalence: a global perspective. Glob Public Health 8:55–64CrossRef
12.
DiNicolantonio JJ, O’Keefe JH, Lucan SC (2015) Added fructose: a principal driver of type 2 diabetes mellitus and its consequences. Mayo Clin Proc 90:372–381CrossRef
13.
Sievenpiper JL, Tappy L, Brouns F (2015) Fructose as a driver of diabetes: an incomplete view of the evidence. Mayo Clin Proc 90:984–988CrossRef
14.
Rippe JM, Angelopoulos TJ (2015) Sugars and health controversies. What does the science say? Adv Nutr 6(Suppl):493S–503SCrossRef
15.
Lustig RH (2010) Fructose: metabolic, hedonic, and societal parallels with ethanol. J Am Diet Assoc 110:1307–1321CrossRef
16.
White JS (2013) Challenging the fructose hypothesis: new perspectives on fructose consumption and metabolism. Adv Nutr 4:246–256CrossRef
17.
Klurfeld D, Foreyt J, Angelopoulos T, Rippe J (2013) Lack of evidence for high fructose corn syrup as the cause of the obesity epidemic. Int J Obes 37:771–773CrossRef
18.
Rippe J, Angelopoulos T (2013) Sucrose, high fructose corn syrup and fructose, and their potential health effects: What do we really know? Adv Nutr 4:236–245CrossRef
19.
Bray GA (2010) Fructose: pure, white, and deadly? Fructose, by any other name, is a health hazard. J Diabetes Sci Technol 4:1003–1007CrossRef
20.
21.
22.
23.
White J (2008) Straight talk about high-fructose corn syrup: what it is and what it ain’t. Am J Clin Nutr 88(suppl):1716S–1721SCrossRef
24.
Bray GA, Nielsen SJ, Popkin BM (2004) Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr 79:537–543
25.
Yudkin J (1972) Pure, white, and deadly. HarperCollins Distribution Services, New York
26.
Glinsmann WH, Bowman BA (1993) The public health significance of dietary fructose. Am J Clin Nutr 58:820S–823S
27.
Teff KL, Grudziak J, Townsend RR, Dunn TN, Grant RW, Adams SH (2009) Endocrine and metabolic effects of consuming fructose- and glucose-sweetened beverages with meals in obese men and women: influence of insulin resistance on plasma triglyceride responses. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 94:1562–1569CrossRef
28.
Stanhope KL, Schwarz JM, Keim NL, Griffen SC, Bremer AA, Graham JL, Hatcher B, Cox CL et al (2009) Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans. J Clin Invest 119:1322–1334CrossRef
29.
Lustig RH (2013) Fructose: it’s “alcohol without the buzz”. Adv Nutr 4:226–235CrossRef
30.
Malik VS, Popkin BM, Bray GA, Despres JP, Hu FB (2010) Sugar-sweetened beverages, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease risk. Circulation 121:1356–1364CrossRef
31.
Ruxton CH, Gardner EJ, McNulty HM (2010) Is sugar consumption detrimental to health? A review of the evidence 1995–2006. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 50:1–19CrossRef
32.
Woodward-Lopez G, Kao J, Ritchie L (2011) To what extent have sweetened beverages contributed to the obesity epidemic? Public Health Nutr 14:499–509CrossRef
33.
World Health Organization (2008) The global burden of disease: 2004 update. World Health Organization, Geneva
34.
35.
Johnson RK, Appel LJ, Brands M, Howard BV, Lefevre M, Lustig RH, On behalf of the American Heart Association Nutrition Committee of the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism and the Council on Epidemiology and Prevention et al (2009) Dietary sugars intake and cardiovascular health, a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation 120:1011–1020CrossRef
36.
Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2015) US Department of Agriculture, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Washington, DC
37.
38.
39.
Agostoni C, Bresson JL, Fairweather-Tait S (2011) Scientific opinion on the substantiation of health claims related to fructose and reduction of post-prandial glycaemic responses (ID 558) pursuant to Article 13(1) of Regulation (EC) no 1924/2006. EFSA J 9:2223–2238CrossRef
40.
Institute of Medicine (U.S.). Panel on Macronutrients, Institute of Medicine (U.S.). Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes (2005) Dietary reference intakes for energy, carbohydrate, fiber, fat, fatty acids, cholesterol, protein, and amino acids. Chapter 6—Dietary carbohydrates: Sugars and starches. National Academies Press, Washington, DC
41.
Katzmarzyk PT, Leon AS, Wilmore JH, Skinner JS, Rao DC, Rankinen T, Bouchard C (2003) Targeting the metabolic syndrome with exercise: evidence from the HERITAGE Family Study. Med Sci Sports Exercise 35:1703–1709CrossRef
42.
Johnson RJ, Murray R (2010) Fructose, exercise, and health. Curr Sports Med Rep 9:253–258CrossRef
43.
Egli L, Lecoultre V, Theytaz F, Campos V, Hodson L, Schneiter P, Mittendorfer B, Patterson BW, Fielding BA, Gerber PA, Giusti V, Berneis K, Tappy L (2013) Exercise prevents fructose-induced hypertriglyceridemia in healthy young subjects. Diabetes 62:2259–2265CrossRef
44.
45.
Marriott BP, Fink CJ, Krakower T (2014) Worldwide consumption of sweeteners and recent trends. In: Rippe JM (ed) Fructose, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose and health. Springer Science, New York
46.
Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB (2011) Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. New Engl J Med 364:2392–2404CrossRef
47.
Tappy L, Le KA (2010) Metabolic effects of fructose and the worldwide increase in obesity. Physiol Rev 90:23–46CrossRef
48.
Sun SZ, Empie MW (2012) Fructose metabolism in humans—what isotopic tracer studies tell us. Nutr Metab 9:89CrossRef
49.
Hellerstein MK, Schwarz JM, Neese RA (1996) Regulation of hepatic de novo lipogenesis in humans. Annu Rev Nutr 16:523–557CrossRef
50.
US Department of Agriculture, Economics Research Service (2013) Calories: average daily per capita calories from the US food supply, adjusted for spoilage and other waste. Loss-adjusted food availability data
51.
Johnston RD, Stephenson MC, Crossland H, Cordon SM, Palcidi E, Cox EF, Taylor MA et al (2013) No difference between high fructose and high glucose diets on liver tricylglycerol or biochemistry in healthy overweight men. Gastroenterology 145:1016–1025CrossRef
52.
Gearhardt AN, Corbin WR, Brownell KD (2009) Preliminary validation of the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Appetite 52:430–436CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Controversies about sugars consumption: state of the science
Authors
James M. Rippe
Ascensión Marcos
Publication date
01-11-2016
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
European Journal of Nutrition / Issue Special Issue 2/2016
Print ISSN: 1436-6207
Electronic ISSN: 1436-6215
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-016-1227-8

Other articles of this Special Issue 2/2016

European Journal of Nutrition 2/2016 Go to the issue

Original Contribution

Sugars, obesity, and cardiovascular disease: results from recent randomized control trials

Review

A review of recent evidence relating to sugars, insulin resistance and diabetes

Review

Controversies about sugars: results from systematic reviews and meta-analyses on obesity, cardiometabolic disease and diabetes

Review

Sugar addiction: the state of the science
Obesity Clinical Trial Summary

At a glance: The STEP trials

Read more

A round-up of the STEP phase 3 clinical trials evaluating semaglutide for weight loss in people with overweight or obesity.

Developed by: Springer Medicine

Highlights from the ACC 2024 Congress

Year in Review: Pediatric cardiology

Pediatric Cardiology Video

Watch Dr. Anne Marie Valente present the last year's highlights in pediatric and congenital heart disease in the official ACC.24 Year in Review session.

Year in Review: Pulmonary vascular disease

Cardiopulmonary Comorbidity Video

The last year's highlights in pulmonary vascular disease are presented by Dr. Jane Leopold in this official video from ACC.24.

Year in Review: Valvular heart disease

Valvular Heart Disease Video

Watch Prof. William Zoghbi present the last year's highlights in valvular heart disease from the official ACC.24 Year in Review session.

Year in Review: Heart failure and cardiomyopathies

Heart Failure Video

Watch this official video from ACC.24. Dr. Biykem Bozkurt discusses last year's major advances in heart failure and cardiomyopathies.

ACC 2024 Congress Coverage

Year in Review: Heart failure and cardiomyopathies

Heart Failure Video

Watch this official video from ACC.24. Dr. Biykem Bozkurt discusses last year's major advances in heart failure and cardiomyopathies.

Watch now

Semaglutide benefits people with type 2 diabetes and obesity-related heart failure

16-04-2024 Type 2 Diabetes News

Incentivised to exercise

11-04-2024 Lifestyle Modifications News

New intervention for STEMI-related cardiogenic shock

10-04-2024 Myocardial Infarction News

» View more highlights on the ACC 2024 congress hub page

Image Credits