And recent studies show HFCS alters the folds in your gut, lengthening them. This increased surface area significantly increases the amount of calories your intestines can extract from the same volume of food.
>The research, published August 18 in Nature, focused on the effect of a high-fructose diet on villi, the thin, hairlike structures that line the inside of the small intestine. Villi expand the surface area of the gut and help the body to absorb nutrients, including dietary fats, from food as it passes through the digestive tract. The study found that mice that were fed diets that included fructose had villi that were 25 percent to 40 percent longer than those of mice that were not fed fructose. Additionally, the increase in villus length was associated with increased nutrient absorption, weight gain and fat accumulation in the animals.[0]
[0] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210818135218.h...
>According to Taylor, the observations in mice make sense from an evolutionary perspective. "In mammals, especially hibernating mammals in temperate climates, you have fructose being very available in the fall months when the fruit is ripe," he said. "Eating a lot of fructose may help these animals to absorb and convert more nutrients to fat, which they need to get through the winter."
Humans generally don't hibernate.
Our evolution had a lot of steps, so well possible that we too have this feature as in the past it might have been adaptive.
Did they compare against sucrose? I see they did have it but can't see if that result was in comparison to the control or to it.