Which Sugar Is Worse?

Can your choice of sugar affect your waistline? It may be too soon to tell, but a very small study recently cast fructose in a worse light.

In the study, the sweet stuff dramatically enhanced lipogenesis -- the process by which the body converts sugar into fat.

Double or Nothing?
In fact, people in the study who consumed a fructose-laced breakfast drink produced double the body fat in a subsequent 4-hour period, compared with the people who had a glucose-only breakfast beverage. (Want to really jump-start your 2009 weight loss efforts? Sign up for one of our new goals-driven weight loss programs.)

Where You Get It
Fructose is found in fruit and fruit juice. But you probably get most of yours from processed foods, because hundreds of them have it in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) -- from soups and salad dressings to breads, cereals, crackers, and sweetened beverages. HFCS is a major source of excess calories, according to the American Dietetic Association. So regardless of whether it's a dietary evil, you may want to cut back. In fact, the YOU Docs recommend ditching HFCS whenever possible. Find out what else they want you to kick out of your kitchen -- and what they want you to keep.

Here's another tool for revving up your fat-burning engines.

Dietary sugars stimulate fatty acid synthesis in adults. Parks, E. J. et al., Journal of Nutrition 2008 Jun;138(6):1039-1046.