Drinks Filled With Fructose May Increase Your Want For High-Calorie Treats

The type of sugar in your drink could ultimately influence how much you eat, according to recent findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Researchers found that many participants wanted to eat more high-calorie foods after they drank something that contained fructose when compared to drinks that contained glucose.

For the study, 24 people were given drinks sweetened with 75 grams of fructose one day and the same amount of glucose in a drink on another day. Findings also showed people with images of high-calorie foods that included candy, cookies, pizza and burgers. Then, researchers asked participants to rate how hungry they were and how much they wanted to eat each food.

Participants reported feeling hungrier and expressed a greater need to eat certain foods after consuming fructose.

The different effects glucose and fructose had on hunger and people's desire for high-calorie foods stemmed from different ways each sugar interacted with the hormones that control feelings of satiety.

Unlike glucose, "fructose fails to stimulate hormones like insulin, which provides satiety signals to the brain," said study author Dr. Kathleen A. Page, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California. So after the consumption of fructose, the brain may not be receiving the signals that trigger feelings of fullness, she added.

The researchers sampled blood for hormones to help control appetite and perform brain scans while the volunteers looked at pictures of tasty foods.

"This allowed us to see how consuming fructose compared to how glucose affected brain, hormone and hunger responses," Page added.

Findings suggested that consuming fructose relative to glucose activated reward centers in the brain that promoted feeding behavior.

So what should people do first if they want to reduce their fructose intake as part of controlling their diet and living a healthier life?

"The best way to reduce fructose intake is to decrease the consumption of added sugar sweeteners, which are the main source of fructose in the American diet," she concluded.