(OrganicJar) A new study conducted at the University of California at Davis found evidence that human consumption of fructose-sweetened beverages can severely affect your health.

According to the data, sugar consumption has been increasing every year. In 2005, the average American consumed 141 pounds of added sugar, a sizable proportion via drinking soft drinks. The 2008 numbers look like they could be well over 200 pounds per person per year. Added sugar is any sugar added to food — sugar in cake, candy or soft drinks — but not sugar naturally found in foods like an orange or apple.

In the study overweight and obese individuals consumed glucose- or fructose-sweetened beverages that provided 25 percent of their energy requirements for 10 weeks.

During this period, the individuals who consumed the fructose-sweetened beverages exhibited an increase in abdominal fat, increased cholesterol levels and signs of diabetes.

Sugar Has Many Disguises

Careful reading of labels is necessary to know how much added sugar you are getting. Sometimes there will be small amounts of many types of sugars, so none of them end up being in the first few ingredients of the label.

Here is a list of some of the possible code words for “sugar” which may appear on a label. Hint: the words “syrup”, “sweetener”, and anything ending in “ose” can usually be assumed to be “sugar”.

• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids
• Dehydrated Cane Juice
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Glucose
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Maltodextrin
• Malt syrup
• Maltose
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Rice Syrup
• Saccharose
• Sorghum or sorghum syrup
• Sucrose
• Syrup
• Treacle
• Turbinado Sugar
• Xylose

My Thoughts

One of the first and easiest steps anyone can take towards improving their health is to eliminate soda (or pop as we call it in the Midwest) from your diet. A close second would be eliminating as much sugar as you can from your diet.

Source: upi.com about.com