halsgluten
10-28-2006, 12:38 AM
(Edited from a post on yahoo group cancelthatglutenorder)
( http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/cancelthatglutenorder/ )
Understanding the malabsorption features of Celiac Disease as well as the metabolic types of Muscular Dystrophy requires understanding of sugar metabolism. There is a link to a great technical web page on the subject at the bottom.
On that site I came across some recent studies of fructose function at the cellular level. I have fructose some suggestions at the bottom.
Fructose has been recommended for diabetics because it can add sweetness to food without elevating blood sugar (glucose).
Buuuut, fructose cannot be absorbed from the gut unless it is eaten with sufficient quantities glucose (fructose must ride in with glucose). If fructose is not absorbed, then you are just feeding the fructose to the nasty flora inside your gut and you get gas, loose stools, inflammation, leaky gut, and the rest of the malabsorption syndromes.
Also, fructose in the blood turns on the liver machinery that pulls glucose out of the blood and stores it as glycogen. If glucose is eaten without fructose (all starches are 100% glucose), then the glucose is not stored and so greatly elevates your blood sugar level. So, without fructose, your body has to use insulin to pound the glucose into your various cells. Once that is done, you don't have any glycogen stores to release from you liver (because the was no fructose) so your blood sugar crashes and then you go in to hypoglycemia and crave more starchy food.
The question is, how much fructose do you need?
Point by point:
Your liver needs dietary fructose to trigger the enzyme to convert glucose into glycogen.
Your body need glycogen to store enregy and control sugar levels.
Your gut needs glucose to absorb fructose.
Excess fructose that is *not* absorbed with glucose cannot be digested, is thus it ferments, and therefore injures the gut.
Excess fructose that is absorbed with glucose is all turned to fat.
So, we now know why grain starches are as glycemic as glucose -- grain
starches are all polyglucose and have no fructose.
Too much fructose, you get fat and smelly.
Too little fructose, you get fat and diabetic.
I have yet to find the papers that say what is the best balance is between fructose ans glucose. So I can only presently apply the "Eat-Me Diet" theory. Fruits are intended to deliver sugars to mammals, so their balance should be a good guess at sugar balance for humans.
There are three basic sugars in fruit, sucrose (table sugar), fructose, and glucose. Since, the sucrose molecule is a combination of one fructose molecule and one glucose molecule – so one could say that there are only two basic sugars in fruit.
(Using the Nutrition Data tool that KimS posted
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c20Al.html
I have learned the following:
Generally, the amounts of glucose and fructose are just about evenly balanced in each type of fruit.* But some fruit have much more sucrose than glucose and fructose, while the other fruit have much less sucrose than glucose and fructose. It seems to me that larger tree fruits tend to have more sucrose than either fructose and glucose while smaller bush and bramble fruits tend to have less sucrose than either fructose and glucose.
So, my guess at a good ration would be equal parts fructose and glucose. Since sucrose requires an extra digestion step, I imagine that sucrose in fruit is intended for larger animals with longer intestines.
Suggestions for what they're worth:
1) Eat and cook with fruit
2) Experiment with sweetening baked goods with fructose (to balance the starchy glucose)
3) For the fun of it, try using a lot of fructose and see if you get gas (if you think that would be safe for you).
Hal
*(Pears are an exception and have several times more fructose than glucose.)
Lower sucrose:
Blue Berries
Blackberries
Grapes
Figs
Plums
Cherries
Higher sucrose:
Apples
Apricots
Dates
Oranges
Grape Fruit
Reference web pages (these are fairly technical slow loading PDF but very good):
http://www.medbio.info
Click on “Carbohydrate metabolism”
Same Stuff, Different arrangement:
http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/carbohydrate_metabolism.htm
Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
Note: I have deleted the incorrect statement “babies can not digest sucrose”. According to a 1964 paper, unlike many other mammals, humans are normally born with all sugar digesting enzymes completely developed. However, humans are born without starch-digesting enzymes and don’t fully develop them until teeth come in.
Reference:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/6/944
( http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/cancelthatglutenorder/ )
Understanding the malabsorption features of Celiac Disease as well as the metabolic types of Muscular Dystrophy requires understanding of sugar metabolism. There is a link to a great technical web page on the subject at the bottom.
On that site I came across some recent studies of fructose function at the cellular level. I have fructose some suggestions at the bottom.
Fructose has been recommended for diabetics because it can add sweetness to food without elevating blood sugar (glucose).
Buuuut, fructose cannot be absorbed from the gut unless it is eaten with sufficient quantities glucose (fructose must ride in with glucose). If fructose is not absorbed, then you are just feeding the fructose to the nasty flora inside your gut and you get gas, loose stools, inflammation, leaky gut, and the rest of the malabsorption syndromes.
Also, fructose in the blood turns on the liver machinery that pulls glucose out of the blood and stores it as glycogen. If glucose is eaten without fructose (all starches are 100% glucose), then the glucose is not stored and so greatly elevates your blood sugar level. So, without fructose, your body has to use insulin to pound the glucose into your various cells. Once that is done, you don't have any glycogen stores to release from you liver (because the was no fructose) so your blood sugar crashes and then you go in to hypoglycemia and crave more starchy food.
The question is, how much fructose do you need?
Point by point:
Your liver needs dietary fructose to trigger the enzyme to convert glucose into glycogen.
Your body need glycogen to store enregy and control sugar levels.
Your gut needs glucose to absorb fructose.
Excess fructose that is *not* absorbed with glucose cannot be digested, is thus it ferments, and therefore injures the gut.
Excess fructose that is absorbed with glucose is all turned to fat.
So, we now know why grain starches are as glycemic as glucose -- grain
starches are all polyglucose and have no fructose.
Too much fructose, you get fat and smelly.
Too little fructose, you get fat and diabetic.
I have yet to find the papers that say what is the best balance is between fructose ans glucose. So I can only presently apply the "Eat-Me Diet" theory. Fruits are intended to deliver sugars to mammals, so their balance should be a good guess at sugar balance for humans.
There are three basic sugars in fruit, sucrose (table sugar), fructose, and glucose. Since, the sucrose molecule is a combination of one fructose molecule and one glucose molecule – so one could say that there are only two basic sugars in fruit.
(Using the Nutrition Data tool that KimS posted
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c20Al.html
I have learned the following:
Generally, the amounts of glucose and fructose are just about evenly balanced in each type of fruit.* But some fruit have much more sucrose than glucose and fructose, while the other fruit have much less sucrose than glucose and fructose. It seems to me that larger tree fruits tend to have more sucrose than either fructose and glucose while smaller bush and bramble fruits tend to have less sucrose than either fructose and glucose.
So, my guess at a good ration would be equal parts fructose and glucose. Since sucrose requires an extra digestion step, I imagine that sucrose in fruit is intended for larger animals with longer intestines.
Suggestions for what they're worth:
1) Eat and cook with fruit
2) Experiment with sweetening baked goods with fructose (to balance the starchy glucose)
3) For the fun of it, try using a lot of fructose and see if you get gas (if you think that would be safe for you).
Hal
*(Pears are an exception and have several times more fructose than glucose.)
Lower sucrose:
Blue Berries
Blackberries
Grapes
Figs
Plums
Cherries
Higher sucrose:
Apples
Apricots
Dates
Oranges
Grape Fruit
Reference web pages (these are fairly technical slow loading PDF but very good):
http://www.medbio.info
Click on “Carbohydrate metabolism”
Same Stuff, Different arrangement:
http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/carbohydrate_metabolism.htm
Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
Note: I have deleted the incorrect statement “babies can not digest sucrose”. According to a 1964 paper, unlike many other mammals, humans are normally born with all sugar digesting enzymes completely developed. However, humans are born without starch-digesting enzymes and don’t fully develop them until teeth come in.
Reference:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/6/944