ThatsGreat.org

Over my winter vacation, I did some research on the biochemistry of various sugars and sweeteners.  Some of the results surprised me, and as such, I wanted to share them with all of you, my dear readers, to see if they will surprise you as well.  Disclosure:  I am a not a biochemist, nor am I a doctor (well, I am a doctor of Computer Science :); as such my words are worth no more than the (virtual) paper they’re printed on.  However, wherever possible, I’ve cited sources much more trustworthy than myself on these matters.  I’d love to get your feedback to make this as correct as possible; please comment directly on the blog or email/facebook me if you have suggestions, corrections, or citations I should add.

1. Fructose is mostly bad for you (note fructose and High Fructose Corn Syrup are not the same, see #5 below); it is entirely metabolized by the liver, and turns mostly into fat and triglycerides; its metabolized in the body in a manner very similar to alcohol. The small amount that occurs naturally in fruits comes with a great deal of fiber and helpful enzymes; fruit juices (even 100% fruit juices) are much worse, as they are delivering only the fructose without the fiber. Fructose also does not trigger a glycemic response, which is your body’s signal to stop eating more, thus your body doesn’t get satiated and you keep having more of it. This article tells more about the problems with metabolizing fructose (the talk below goes into much more scientific detail, but this article is a good summary). Glucose, on the other hand, is the "fuel of life," and can be used by every cell in your body; a relatively small fraction of it turns to fat; most of it is stored as glycogen in the liver.  Recent, peer-reviewed work has showed that fructose has a much greater impact on obesity. The one advantage of fructose is that it can be turned more rapidly to ATP in the bloodstream; so if you are in glycogen depletion (i.e., running a marathon and totally out of your glucose reserves), fructose can be effective at giving you instant energy. See the talk "Sugar: the Bitter Truth", by Dr. Robert Lustig, a research physician at UCSF for lots more information on this – it’s 90 minutes long, but after the first 10 minutes you’ll likely be as hooked as I was.

2. Most common sugars/syrups are a combination of fructose and glucose, see this chart of common sweeteners and their ratios. In some sense, the lower the fructose content, the better (unless you’re diabetic), given the problems with fructose above; however, an excess of glucose in the blood will be converted to fatty acids and triglycerides in the blood, it will also provoke an insulin response (sugar crash).  It’s likely not practical to sweeten with just glucose, though, since (a) glucose is less sweet than ordinary sugar (sucrose), about 70%; fructose is more sweet, and (b)  a tablespoon of glucose powder has twice the glycemic index of a tablespoon of table sugar, since sucrose is only 50% glucose.

3. A corollary to #2 is that eating too much is really bad for you, especially if you’re trying to lose weight or lower your cholesterol, since the excess glucose will all become fatty acids/cholesterol/etc.  This is why nutritionists are always recommending eating many small meals instead of one big one.

4. Table sugar, sucrose, is a disaccharide, with one fructose and one glucose for every molecule linked together with a weak chemical bond; as such it’s 50% fructose and 50% glucose. This bond is broken down in the small intestine by the enzyme sucrase.

5. High Fructose Corn Syrup, or HFCS, is not nearly as bad as pure fructose: common HFCS (HFCS-55) is 55% fructose, 42% glucose, or (HFCS-42) 42% fructose and 53% glucose; HFCS-90 is rarely used in foods. In other words, the proportion of fructose and glucose are about the same as in table sugar (sucrose), the only difference is that they are in solution as monosaccharides and as such sucrase doesn’t come into the picture. As such, other than the invocation of sucrase, HFCS is basically equivalent to sugar in terms of the fructose/glucose content delivered to your body.

6.  A cup of "100% pure" fruit juice is much worse for you than a cup of soda, at least in terms of fat impact/obesity, as it will typically contain more sugar, and since the sugars in the pure fruit juice are entirely fructose.  Furthermore, the juice is typically entirely devoid of fiber (I’m not sure how much orange juice "with pulp" alleviates this).  This study, referenced in WebMD, showed how individuals consuming fructose showed more weight gain/obesity than those consuming the same amount of sucrose.  Note, however, that there are other benefits to fruit juice, such as providing essential vitamins, amino acids, etc., which soda does not have.

7. Pure corn syrup is almost 100% glucose, however, it’s hard to find on the market. Karo, for instance, sold as corn syrup, has a substantial portion of fructose. It is sometimes sold as "Dextrose," “corn sugar,” or "Brewer’s Sugar" and is common in bodybuilder products.

8. Most natural "high-carb" starchy foods, such as rice, potatoes, etc., are all glucose, but come with a good deal of fiber. This means it will take a little more time for the body to absorb the sugar, as opposed to the instant high/crash of a soft drink, fruit juice, or spoonfuls of table sugar.  Depending on how much effort it takes for the body to break it down, though, it may not take much more time; how much of an insulin response it produces compared to pure glucose determines its glycemic index.  White bread, for instance, which is very low in fiber, seems to produce 70% of the insulin response of pure glucose.

9. Maple syrup has a surprisingly good glucose to fructose ratio: about 4:1.  As a result, it has a high glycemic index, but will result in less of the fat/poisions one gets from metabolizing fructose.

Artificial Sweeteners

Caveat: the following points are much more controversial; there’s not a lot of conclusive evidence about the long-term effects of any artificial sweeteners.  That said, you may still find the following points interesting, as I certainly did!

10. Sucralose (splenda), while superficially similar to a sugar molecule, has more in common with insecticides; don’t be fooled by its -lose suffix. In fact, sucralose was discovered by scientists trying to come up with a new insecticide. It contains a Chlorine atom, which is very stable in salt (NaCl), but not nearly so much in its covalent bond with carbon.

11. Aspartame (Nutrasweet), when metabolized by the body, produces (amongst other things) formaldehyde. This is an extremely toxic substance, and does not occur naturally in the body. I found it curious that the wikipedia page for aspartame says that it does occur in the body, and the page for formaldehyde says it doesn’t.   Proponents of aspartame argue that it does occur naturally in some food, such as tomatoes.  However, this article does a good job of reasoning about the actual amount of formaldehyde that ends up in your body after having 1 Liter of diet soda (600 mg ingested, 40 mg absorbed is the most conservative estimate); this is enough to cause gradual damage according to the article, and much more than ordinary foods have (tomatoes, for instance, have 10mg/kg or 4.5mg/lb ingested, so likely around 0.3mg/lb absorbed, i.e. one Liter of soda results in more than 100 times the amount of formaldehyde in your body than a pound of tomatoes) – see this document for a list of formaldehyde content in common foods. 

12.  Artificial sweeteners may actually make you fat:  this fascinating study shows that diet sodas are highly predictive of later obesity across a wide variety of factors.

After a few months of doing paper sketches and putting them up to share on facebook, flickr, etc., I realized what a valuable and motivating experience it was.  Valuable in that with every new sketch, I was learning new things, developing my technique, etc.; motivating in that I could get it out to the world (and occasionally get feedback) instantly.  Even people who wouldn’t make comments on the sites would comment on them when they saw me in person; as time went on, it felt more and more like I was drawing for an audience (which added a bit of pressure, but it was still fun).

Given that I’m often reluctant to sit down and work on songs because it can seem so onerous and ponderous (what if I screw it up?) to do on my own, I thought I’d try applying the same philosophy to playing with music.  The result is a set of what I call "song sketches," of which I’ve made nine so far (in the grid above), roughly one a day.  So far, it’s been great - I haven’t gotten as much feedback as with the sketches, but I find myself motivated to work on some music when I come home.  I think this is for several reasons - first, because these are sketches, it’s pretty low pressure - I’m not worried about making something that sounds produced and perfect.  Second, because they’re short, I know I can finish and post the new piece every night.  Third, it gives me a chance to play with different instruments and types of music than I usually do, since I’m not making complete songs.   Finally, it’s actually quite a nice way to document song ideas - there’s already a few that I want to make into more complete songs.

Hopefully I’ll keep doing this for a while - my initial goal was 30, but who knows where I’ll end up: maybe 10, maybe 100.  Stay tuned :)  You can can see the playlist of all the songsketches here.