Agreed, fructose combined with overeating will lead likely to problems, fructose alone often not.
But what do you make of this passage in the abstract of the linked paper?
> Thus, fructose can exert detrimental health effects beyond its calories and in ways that mimic those of ethanol, its metabolic cousin. Indeed, the only distinction is that because fructose is not metabolized in the central nervous system, it does not exert the acute neuronal depression experienced by those imbibing ethanol. These metabolic and hedonic analogies argue that fructose should be thought of as “alcohol without the buzz.”
As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false?
Do you have any references for this?
> As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false? Do you have any references for this?
Ethanol is metabolized ethanol->acetaldehyde->acetate->acetyl CoA whereas fructose is metabolized through the fructolysis pathway, which eventually enters glycolysis the same as other carbohydrates. All energy nutrients eventually end up at acetyl CoA and enter the citric acid cycle, but there is nothing uniquely similar about fructose and alcohol besides being metabolized only in the liver, which is also done for a lot of other nutrients from food. This is all in any basic undergrad biochemistry textbook. Short chain fats from fermented vegetable fiber in the gut for example are widely regarded as super healthy, and are also metabolized in the liver, and nobody says "vegetables are basically just alcohol without the buzz."
Lustig is just confused in my opinion, and he has a particular type of personality where conflicting evidence entrenches rather than weakens his confused opinion. I had some initial interest in learning more about his ideas before I actually met him at a conference (I am a PI researcher in this field) and found him to be arrogantly dismissive of any and all technical questions and criticisms, without trying to understand what people are saying.
But what do you make of this passage in the abstract of the linked paper?
> Thus, fructose can exert detrimental health effects beyond its calories and in ways that mimic those of ethanol, its metabolic cousin. Indeed, the only distinction is that because fructose is not metabolized in the central nervous system, it does not exert the acute neuronal depression experienced by those imbibing ethanol. These metabolic and hedonic analogies argue that fructose should be thought of as “alcohol without the buzz.”
As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false? Do you have any references for this?