New Discovered Cause of High Blood Pressure and Obesity - Fructo

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/25/startling-research-findings-a-newly-discovered-cause-of-high-blood-pressure-and-obesity.aspx

Fructose Turns You Into a Uric Acid Factory

It’s been known for ages that meats and purine-rich foods can raise uric acid, but it turns out that one of the most profound ways to raise uric acid is by consuming the simple sugar fructose.

The chemical name for regular table sugar is sucrose, which is made up of two simple sugars, fructose and glucose, that are linked together.

Glucose and fructose are different types of simple sugars. After they are separated apart and broken down in your body they are metabolized using completely separate pathways. Glucose is utilized by every cell in your body -- in fact, your body was designed to use it for energy.

But fructose breaks down into a variety of waste products that are bad for your body, one of which is uric acid. As it turns out, uric acid drives up your blood pressure.

How does it do this?

Uric acid inhibits the nitric oxide in your blood vessels, and nitric oxide helps your vessels maintain their elasticity. Nitric oxide suppression leads to increases in blood pressure.

In fact, 17 out of 17 studies demonstrate that elevated uric acid levels lead to hypertension.

Thanks to Dr. Johnson’s research, we now know that fructose generates uric acid within minutes of ingestion. High levels of uric acid are normally associated with gout, but it has been long known that people with high blood pressure and kidney disease, and people who are overweight, often have elevated uric acid levels.

It was thought this increased uric acid resulted from the disease, but it appears now that it may have been CAUSING it!

Not surprisingly, uric acid levels have been increasing for the past hundred years.

When your uric acid level exceeds about 5.5 mg per dl, you have an increased risk for a host of diseases, including:

• Hypertension
• Kidney disease
• Insulin resistance, obesity, and diabetes
• Fatty liver
• Elevated triglycerides, elevated LDL, and cardiovascular disease
• For pregnant women, even preeclampsia

This is exactly why I am so passionate about educating you about the dangers of fructose! I am thoroughly convinced it’s one of the leading causes of a great deal of needless suffering from poor health and premature death.

One of the other professionals who truly opened my eyes and educated me on this issue is Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at University of California in San Francisco.

If you still haven’t watched his very popular and excellent lecture on the dangers of fructose and other sugars, I strongly recommend you take the time to do it. (I’ve published it in two parts. Click here for part 1, and here for part 2.)

Glucose Makes Fructose Even More Potent!

Fructose consumption clearly causes insulin resistance, whereas straight glucose does not. Insulin resistance can eventually lead to full blown diabetes.

Interestingly, glucose actually accelerates fructose absorption. So when you mix glucose and fructose together, you absorb more fructose than if you consumed fructose alone. This is an important piece of information if you are struggling to control your weight.

Remember, sucrose, or table sugar, is exactly this blend -- fructose plus glucose.