A Pilot Study Comparing the Effects of Consuming 100% Orange Juice or Sucrose-Sweetened Beverage on Risk Factors for Cardiometabolic Disease in Women

Abstract

Overconsumption of sugar-sweetened beverages increases risk factors associated with cardiometabolic disease, in part due to hepatic fructose overload. However, it is not clear whether consumption of beverages containing fructose as naturally occurring sugar produces equivalent metabolic dysregulation as beverages containing added sugars. We compared the effects of consuming naturally-sweetened orange juice (OJ) or sucrose-sweetened beverages (sucrose-SB) for two weeks on risk factors for cardiometabolic disease. Healthy, overweight women (n = 20) were assigned to consume either 3 servings of 100% orange juice or sucrose-SB/day. We conducted 16-hour serial blood collections and 3-h oral glucose tolerance tests during a 30-h inpatient visit at baseline and after the 2-week diet intervention. The 16-h area under the curve (AUC) for uric acid increased in subjects consuming sucrose-SB compared with subjects consuming OJ. Unlike sucrose-SB, OJ did not significantly increase fasting or postprandial lipoproteins. Consumption of both beverages resulted in reductions in the Matsuda insulin sensitivity index (OJ: −0.40 ± 0.18, p = 0.04 within group; sucrose-SB: −1.0 ± 0.38, p = 0.006 within group; p = 0.53 between groups). Findings from this pilot study suggest that consumption of OJ at levels above the current dietary guidelines for sugar intake does not increase plasma uric acid concentrations compared with sucrose-SB, but appears to lead to comparable decreases of insulin sensitivity.

Consuming Sucrose- or HFCS-sweetened Beverages Increases Hepatic Lipid and Decreases Insulin Sensitivity in Adults

“…An extensive meta-analysis revealed no effects of fructose consumption on fasting glucose, fasting insulin, or HOMA-IR and our results agree with this ( 54 ). Indeed, our discordant findings for HOMA-IR vs the Matsuda ISI and Predicted M ISI support the conclusion of Shaibi and colleagues ( 55 ), and our own recent results ( 56 ), that HOMA-IR lacks the sensitivity to detect changes of whole-body insulin sensitivity that are detected by more sophisticated methods employing OGTTs and frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance tests. The meta-analysis ( 54 ) also concluded that fructose consumption does not affect peripheral or muscle insulin sensitivity index based on 3 studies ( 14 , 15 , 57 ) that assessed whole body glucose disposal under euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp conditions.…”

“…However, compared with aspartame-SB, sucrose-SB significantly increased postprandial TG, fasting and postprandial apoCIII, LDL-C, nonHDL-C, uric acid, and postprandial apoB. These results support previous dietary intervention studies that showed increases in TG, lipoproteins and uric acid in subjects consuming sucrose ( 14 , 49 , 56 , 65 ).…”

“…Older ( 61-63 ) and more recent studies ( 56 ) have also shown that high sucrose diets increased glucose and insulin response during OGTT. The discrepancy between the results generated during OGTT and those generated during clamp ( 54 ) could be due to the type of sugar consumed (fructose vs sucrose) or may be due to the sensitivity, repeatability and reproducibility of euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamps compared to OGTTs.…”

Reply to: ‘Guidelines on ‘added’ sugars are unscientific and unnecessary’

“…The polyphenols 5 and other micronutrients in fruit might also have direct effects on specific metabolic pathways that lead to health benefits, but this topic has not been well studied. However, three clinical dietary intervention studies have shown that the consumption of naturally sweetened orange juice lowers circulating uric acid levels compared with the consumption of a sugar-sweetened beverage 6,7 .…”