How Sugar Makes Your Body Store Fat
Recent Progress on Fructose Metabolism—Chrebp, Fructolysis, and Polyol Pathway
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Your body handles fruit sugar (fructose) in the gut and liver. If you eat too much, the gut can't handle it all, so extra goes to the liver and turns into fat. Your body can even make this sugar when blood sugar is high. Some proteins and enzymes control this process.
Surprising Findings
Blood fructose levels are only 1/100th of glucose levels—even after eating fructose.
Most people assume fructose circulates widely like glucose, but it’s rapidly cleared by the gut and liver—making its metabolic impact disproportionate to its blood concentration.
Practical Takeaways
Limit added sugars, especially sugary drinks, to avoid overwhelming your gut’s ability to process fructose safely.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Your body handles fruit sugar (fructose) in the gut and liver. If you eat too much, the gut can't handle it all, so extra goes to the liver and turns into fat. Your body can even make this sugar when blood sugar is high. Some proteins and enzymes control this process.
Surprising Findings
Blood fructose levels are only 1/100th of glucose levels—even after eating fructose.
Most people assume fructose circulates widely like glucose, but it’s rapidly cleared by the gut and liver—making its metabolic impact disproportionate to its blood concentration.
Practical Takeaways
Limit added sugars, especially sugary drinks, to avoid overwhelming your gut’s ability to process fructose safely.
Publication
Journal
Nutrients
Year
2023
Authors
K. Iizuka
Related Content
Claims (6)
Your gut handles small amounts of fructose just fine, but when you eat too much, it gets overwhelmed and lets the extra pass through to your liver.
Eating too much fructose — like from sugary drinks and processed foods — might be linked to weight gain, liver problems, cavities, heart disease, and even some cancers.
If people eat a lot of fructose, their body breaks it down in the gut and liver, and that process can turn the sugar into fat, which may build up in the liver over time.
A protein in your body called Chrebp helps control how your liver and gut handle sugar from fruit by turning on certain enzymes that break down fructose.
Your body can make its own fructose from sugar (glucose), especially when blood sugar is high—and this internal fructose might harm your metabolism, even if you don’t eat any fructose at all.