The fructose analog 2,5-anhydro-D-mannitol (2,5-AM) stimulates feeding in rats by reducing ATP content in the liver. These behavioral and metabolic effects occur with rats fed a high-carbohydrate/low-fat (HC/LF) diet, but they are prevented or attenuated when the animals eat high-fat/low-carbohydrate (HF/LC) food. To examine the metabolic bases for this effect of diet, we assessed the actions o...

OBJECTIVE The marked increase in the prevalence of obesity in the United States has recently been attributed to the increased fructose consumption. To determine if and how fructose might promote obesity in an animal model, we measured body composition, energy intake, energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, and several endocrine parameters related to energy homeostasis in mice consuming fructos...

The present review updates the current knowledge on the question of whether high fructose consumption is harmful or not and details new findings which further pushes this old debate. Due to large differences in its metabolic handling when compared to glucose, fructose was indeed suggested to be beneficial for the diet of diabetic patients. However its growing industrial use as a sweetener, espe...

BACKGROUND S-methyl cysteine (SMC) is a hydrophilic cysteine-containing compound naturally found in garlic and onion. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the protective effect of SMC on oxidative stress, inflammation and insulin resistance in an experiment of metabolic syndrome. METHODS Male Wistar rats were divided into five groups (6 rats in each group), namely; control, con...

Although there are small animal platforms that recapitulate some of the histological features of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, there are no small animal models of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with consistent hepatocellular ballooning and progressive fibrosis that also exhibit fidelity to the human condition physiologically. We examined the metabolic and histological effects of a diet...

Sucrose- and fructose-enriched diets produce hepatic insulin resistance in rats independently of obesity. In humans, fructose infusion results in impaired insulin regulation of glucose production. The aim of the present study was to identify intrahepatic mediators of sucrose- and fructose-induced hepatic insulin resistance. In study 1, male rats were fed a control diet (STD, 68% of energy from ...

BACKGROUND A high dietary protein intake has been shown to blunt the deposition of intrahepatic lipids in high-fat- and high-carbohydrate-fed rodents and humans. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of essential amino acid supplementation on the increase in hepatic fat content induced by a high-fructose diet in healthy subjects. DESIGN Nine healthy male volunteers were...

The role of insulin resistance (IR) in atherogenesis is poorly understood, in part because of a lack of appropriate animal models. We assumed that fructose-fed LDL receptor-deficient (LDLR-/-) mice might be a model of IR and atherosclerosis because (1) fructose feeding induces hyperinsulinemia and IR in rats; (2) a preliminary experiment showed that fructose feeding markedly increases plasma ch...

Obesity contributes to metabolic abnormalities such as insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and glucose intolerance, all of which are risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome. The growing prevelance of metabolic syndrome seems to be an end result of our current lifestyle which promotes high caloric, high-fat foods and minimal physical activity, resulting in a state of positive...

The role of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia in the etiology of fructose-induced hypertension was studied in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Rats consumed a fructose-enriched diet (containing 66% of total calories as fructose) for 11 days and were infused continuously during the last 7 days with either a somatostatin analogue or vehicle. At the end of this period, rats receiving the somatostat...