Health Consequences of a Moderate Fructose Diet Revealed by Organismal Performance Assays (OPAs)

Adverse effects of fructose at human‐relevant levels have been suspected from epidemiology, but empirical confirmation has been lacking. Here we use a novel methodology (OPAs) to demonstrate health declines from diets of free fructose and glucose (modeling HFCS) compared to diets of sucrose or no added sugar. During OPAs mice raised on experimental and control diets compete directly for resources, territories and mates in seminatural enclosures. Due to the competitive nature of mouse ecology, differences in individual performance result in quantitative fitness differentials. OPA data are reported from two studies comparing a free fructose and glucose diet (25 % Kcal) vs. either sucrose (25% Kcal) or a diet free of added sugar. OPAs revealed that females on the monosaccharide diet experience a 3‐fold increase in mortality compared to females raised on either sucrose or sugar‐free diets. Likewise, OPAs revealed that males on the sugar‐free diet obtain social dominance at 4‐times the rate and produce 50% more offspring than males fed simple sugar. These findings represent the lowest observed adverse effect level for dietary fructose (12.5% Kcal) and indicate that the free form of fructose is more deleterious than sucrose.