Fructose sends blood pressure soaring

If you’re trying to break your own junk-food habit, I’ve got one more reason for you to start now.

New research has linked fructose to high blood pressure.

That’s the sweetener used in just about everything you shouldn’t be eating to begin with. In fact, if you pick up a package and find any kind of “fructose” listed in the ingredients, put it back on the shelf and just walk away.

Researchers looked at 4,528 adults with no history of hypertension, and found that 74 grams of fructose per day – the amount you’ll find in roughly 2.5 sodas – increased the risk of high blood pressure by as much as 87 percent.

Now, most of us know that sodas are packed with this stuff. But unless you read ingredient labels, you may not realize
that fructose is in just about everything, from yogurt to salad dressing to barbecue sauce.

As a result, fructose – especially high-fructose corn syrup – has quietly become an add-all ingredient that has worked
its way into nearly every dish and drink. In fact, American fructose consumption has gone up 30 percent in 20 years,
and it’s one of the key ingredients leading to our epidemics of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

But that’s not the only ingredient to watch out for. You want to avoid pure sugar too, and pretty much all of its
substitutes. Artificial sweeteners promise zero calories… but studies have shown that people who rely on them often
actually gain weight.

It seems the fake sugars trick the brain – causing it to lose track of calories. In the end, you end up eating even more.

Aspartame in particular, a common sweetener use in sugar-free drinks and snacks, has also been linked to side effects ranging from headaches to insomnia.

That’s a lot to avoid – entire aisles of the supermarket, really.

But many of these are products in which fructose is one of just many problems. You don’t need them to begin with – and now, you have one more reason to give them a pass.