Fructose 'may not cause weight gain'
Fructose itself does not appear to cause weight gain in people who consume it instead of other carbohydrates, a review has found.Researchers in Canada and the US reviewed 41 trials in order to investigate the contribution of fructose consumption to people's chances of being overweight or obese.
In 31 of these trials, participants ate a similar number of calories, but half ate pure fructose while the other half consumed other carbohydrates.
In the remaining ten trials, half of the participants ate their normal diet, while the other half added excess fructose to their usual diets.
The researchers found that, among people who consumed the same number of calories, fructose was no more likely to cause weight gain than non-fructose carbohydrates.
When people added fructose to their normal diet, they tended to gain weight. But the researchers concluded that this was probably due to eating extra calories, as opposed to consuming fructose itself.
Writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine, they concluded: "Fructose does not seem to cause weight gain when it is substituted for other carbohydrates in diets providing similar calories.
"Free fructose at high doses that provided excess calories modestly increased body weight, an effect that may be due to the extra calories rather than the fructose."
