Alternative Health Blog

All sugars are not the same. New research finds that drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup raise cholesterol levels and triglycerides and make people fat, according to The Week. Researchers at the University of California Davis put a group0 of men and women on diets that included one that got 25 percent of its calories from fructose-sweetened drinks. At the end of the 12-week program, the fructose-drinking subjects had gained more dangerous visceral fat, and had developed more resistance to insulin (an early sign of diabetes) than a control group whose drinks were sweetened with glucose, a less sweet sugar found in carrots and other vegetables. Dr. Walter Willet of Harvard University tells Time that the study provides "the best evidence yet" not to let kids consume large quantities of sweetened soda, fruit juice, and other beverages. "If children grow up with everything tasting supersweet," he says, "then it's hard for them to appreciate the gentle sweetness of a fresh carrot or an apple." May your children and your grandchildren always be blessed with good health.