For years, nutrition experts have grappled with the complex puzzle of obesity, with debate centered around the main culprit: excessive calorie intake, certain foods such as carbohydrates, fats, or perhaps the role of sugar. A team of American researchers now proposes a unifying theory that unites these seemingly contradictory ideas under a single common engine, News.ro reports.

Scientists believe that they have found a potential culprit of the obesity epidemic: fructose.

Fructose, found in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, is at the heart of the obesity problem, according to a team led by Dr. Richard Johnson, a researcher at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine.

Fructose can also be produced in the body from carbohydrates, especially glucose.

When the body metabolizes fructose, it reduces active energy known as ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which subsequently causes hunger and increased food intake.

This concept, which the researchers call the “fructose survival hypothesis,” brings together various dietary theories related to obesity, including two that are at odds with each other: the energy balance theory, which states that excessive consumption of food, especially fat, causes obesity. , as well as the carbohydrate-insulin model, which emphasizes the role of carbohydrates in weight gain.

These theories, which previously seemed incompatible, can now be seen as pieces of a larger puzzle united by one key component: fructose.

“Essentially, these theories, which place a number of metabolic and dietary factors at the center of the obesity epidemic, are all pieces of a puzzle united by one final piece: fructose,” Dr. Johnson wrote in a university statement.

Fructose causes the metabolism to go into low-power mode and we lose control of our appetite, but fatty foods become the main source of calories that cause weight gain, he writes.

To illustrate this unifying theory, researchers point to hibernating animals.

When people are hungry and do not have enough energy, the body goes into survival mode, like animals preparing for winter by looking for food.

Fruits known to be high in fructose can significantly reduce active energy. Meanwhile, fats serve as stored energy.

Consuming foods rich in fructose prevents the recovery of active energy from stored fat, leaving active energy at a low level, as in the case of a bear preparing for a long winter hibernation.

“This theory views obesity as a low-energy state,” Dr. Johnson notes.

The identification of fructose as a channel that redirects active energy recovery to fat storage shows that it is fructose that leads to energy imbalance, unifying existing theories of obesity, he concludes. (excitement from News.ro)

The study was published Tuesday, Oct. 17, in the journal Obesity.