I am getting confused now. Where does the fructose cause diabetes then?
Dr Lustig explained the mechanism of oxidation stress and how this affects the binding of proteins inside the liver cell compartments at 55:20 of the video. It was illustrated with a picture:
I agree with what he said, but then what caught my attention, was that he suddenly talked not about the liver cells but about the pancreatic cells instead. This pointed at how bad fructose is for pancreas. Well, did he not say some while ago, that fructose can, after consumption of excess sugar, occur in the blood in 5 micromoles concentration, which is 1000 times lower than of normal glucose concentration? He said that this was enough to trigger insulin response, too...
My question is: if little fructose is good for the liver (certainly at higher concentration than 5 micromoles), but this small concentration in the systemic circulation can damage pancreas to such extend it can lead to diabetes and insulin resistance, where glucose comes into this picture? Pancreas responds primarily to glucose levels in blood... glucose, albeit 7-times slower in browning reaction (in vitro), has more capacity for this damage because it appears in blood in 1000 times higher concentrations than fructose. And diabetics with a poorly managed blood glucose levels are known to have increased concentrations of glycosylated haemoglobin. It is not the fructose that causes it.
My other question is: how much insulin can fructose make the pancreas producing so that the insulin concentration raises to the level classified as hyperinsulinemia? Dr Lustig suggested this as well but he did not explain it further.
No comments:
Post a Comment