On November 23, 1998, wire services ran a story with the headline, "A not-so-sweet side of sugar -- it could age you." This resulted from a study that was published in the Journal of Nutrition in early September. This is quite unusual because scientific journals send out press releases to coincide with publication and two monthly issues have appeared since this report came out. Why is this of any interest?
This is a flagrant example of the news media seeing fire where there isn't even any smoke. The study was a one year experiment on rats given high amounts of fructose, glucose, or sucrose in their drinking water; these were compared to a group getting plain water. Scientists found that the rats given fructose had more undesirable cross-linking changes in the collagen of their skin than in the other groups. These changes are thought to be markers for aging.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: This experiment is the first demonstration that fructose consumption is associated with changes that are thought to be markers of aging. While the news media warned that eating too much sweet junk food could cause wrinkles and health problems, the scientists who did the work said: "further studies are required to clarify the precise role of fructose in the aging process." The study was done in rats; what it means for people is completely unknown at this time. It needs to be reproduced and some additional evidence generated that the same thing occurs in at least one more species (preferably closer to humans) before any recommendation can be made. We also need to know if these markers are truly indicators of faster aging. There are so many scientific "maybes" and "ifs" in this story that it has no practical meaning for our diets.
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