(Heym, that was a long subject line!!!) Trish Tipton shared an article entitled: Glucose And Fructose Increase Fat In Bloodstream April 7, 1999. *.... Dr. Richard Mattes, a professor in the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, told Reuters Health that glucose raises the level of triglycerides in the bloodstream just as much as fructose, the type of sugar that comes from fruit and is commonly found in soda.* I would like to correct what I think is a MAJOR ERROR HERE!!!! (I was just going over articles last week for an article I was writing called *Good Reasons to Can Soda Pop!!) What I discovered was that the type of sweetener found in most soft drinks is not fructose. It is HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP OR HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SWEETENER!!! Surprisingly, this stuff (<< nice word!!!) does not come from fruit. It has a different moleculur structure and comes from corn (processed to the enth degree!!) Her is what Dr. Alan Gaby says in his article, *Why fructose is not a health food* in Nature's Impact magazine, Feb./March, 1998. (Btw: He is referring to HFCS not naturally occuring fructose in fruit!) Says, Gaby, *The availalbe evidecne that fructose is at least as toxic to the human body as are sucrose and other refined sugars. For that reason, I recommend that the intak of soft drinks and other foods containing high-fructose corn syrup be kept to a minimum. On the other hand, there is not evidence that eating fruit (which also contains fructose) is harmful. To the contrary, most research indicates that eating fruit can prevent heart disease, cncer, and other diseases. One might speculate that the vitamins, minerals, flavinoids, fiber and other nutrients that occur in fruit inhibit the fructose reaction.* Here the fructose reaction to which he refers is *The frucose-protein ineraction is known to people who bake cookies and pies as the *browning reacion*; to chemists as *the Maillard reaction*; and to pathologists as *glycosylation* or *glycation*. When this reaction occurs in the human body, it changes the structure of enzymes and other proteins, resuling in tissue and organ damage.....and is widely believed to be one of the major causes of organ damge in diabetics and one of the principal mechanisms of aging... Refs: Nutr Rev 40:117-118, 128, 1982. See also, Werman, MJ, et al: The chronic effect of dietary fructose on glycation and collagen cross-linking in rats. AM J Clin Nutr 66:219, 1997. Hope this helps clarify things! Rachel (on to new and exciting articles!)