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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

Once thing I would really like to know is if it's Fructose or Glucose (or both) that causes the problem.

Studies usually look at "sugar" in general without specifying which one.

Based on some reading I've done it seems to me that sugars other than Glucose are the problem and switching to Glucose would let us have sweet food with less of a health problem.

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As with most nutrition topics, it's more complex than that. There's evidence that fructose consumed as part of fresh fruits doesn't affect the body the same way as fructose added to other foods, or even the same way that fruit juice does.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for...

Fructose is linked to liver problems, and also creates far more glycation end-products than glucose (which could very well be part of the atherosclerosis explanation).

One problem is that glucose without fructose really doesn't taste very good at all. One option might be replacing sugars entirely with sugar alcohols with low intestinal distress, like erythritol.

Of course, we could always work to become a less decadent society, but that won't happen.

Glucose without fructose tastes perfectly acceptable. It's as flavorless as any simple sugar. It's about 0.75 times as sweet as sucrose. The mouth-feel is slightly different but still pleasant.

Fructose, if this video by Lustic is anything to go by:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

One problem is that it requires about 33% more glucose to match the sweetness of sucrose and 126% more glucose to match the sweetness of fructose. Glucose has a much higher effect on insulin levels and glycemic load which makes it a harder problem for diabetics.

Fructose, on the other hand, has all the issues described in the Dr. Lustig video linked in another reply.

I just avoid anything with a lot of any type of sugar (more than a few grams per serving) as much as I can.

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