American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 50, 1015-1022, Copyright © 1989 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc

ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Lipid metabolism in non-insulin-dependent diabetes: effects of long- term treatment with fructose-supplemented mixed meals

AW Thorburn, PA Crapo, WF Beltz, P Wallace, JL Witztum and RR Henry
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.

Using fructose in the diabetic diet remains controversial primarily because of the potential for adverse effects on serum lipids. Therefore, lipid metabolism was evaluated in five NIDDM subjects (as inpatients) for 3 mo before and after ingestion of mixed meals containing 13% of calories as fructose. Triglyceride (TG) transport in very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) was assessed by multicompartmental analysis of VLDL-TG specific activity after injection of 3H-2-glycerol. There were no deleterious changes in lipid metabolism after fructose supplementation. The fructose diet produced no changes in serial free fatty acids (from 0.39 +/- 0.04 to 0.51 to 0.12 mmol/L), total cholesterol (from 5.43 +/- 0.52 to 5.53 +/- 0.57 mmol/L), high-density lipoproteins (from 0.91 +/- 0.08 to 0.93 +/- 0.08 mmol/L), low-density lipoproteins (from 3.10 +/- 0.52 to 2.92 +/- 0.47 mmol/L), VLDL-TG production (from 2.11 +/- 0.36 to 2.07 +/- 0.30 mmol/h), and fractional catabolic rate (from 0.186 +/- 0.014 to 0.196 +/- 0.03/h). Physiologic amounts of fructose are unlikely to have adverse effects on lipid metabolism when consumed by these diabetic subjects in place of sucrose in mixed meals for a prolonged period.