Study Shows How Fructose Causes Overeating

If you want to lose weight and be healthier you should avoid eating or drinking a lot of fructose, a sugar that is found in high amounts in many processed foods. New research from Yale University shows that regularly eating the sweat chemical may actually cause serious changes in the brain.

After eating or drinking a high fructose food or beverage the brain doesn't "feel" full the way it does after consuming other types of sugar, such as pure glucose. So you get all the sugary calories and continue to eat because you're still hungry.

Special MRI scans showed that drinking a fructose-rich beverage didn't have the same effect on subjects' brains as drinking a simple glucose beverage. Specifically, it didn't suppress the activity of areas of the brain that control "reward" impulses, so the desire to eat wasn't turned off.

For many years now some health and nutrition experts have warned against the unique dangers of fructose, especially the high-fructose corn syrup found in thousands of modern packaged foods. This new study gives a very big boost to the accuracy of that advice.

Since Americans began consuming fructose is large amounts in the 60's and 70's the number of overweight and obese people in the US has exploded. About a third of American kids are now considered overweight or obese!

There are many types of sugar and every one is metabolized and processed differently in the human body. Eating too much of any sugar can hurt your health but this new research helps to explain why fructose may be especially bad for you.

Learn some mo': Brain Image Study: Fructose May Spur Overeating