What is Fructose Malabsorption?
Fructose intolerance or fructose malabsorption could be the cause of many puzzling health issues that you’ve been experiencing. Fructose malabsorption is when your intestinal cells can’t digest the fructose entirely. Fructose is a simple sugar that is found mainly in fruits and vegetables but is also produced in honey, nectar, and processed foods. According to healthline.com, since high fructose corn syrup consumption increased over 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990. If you aren’t watching how much fructose you’re consuming and are experiencing digestive issues, you might want to consider low fructose sweeteners to replace your sugar and syrup intake.
Fructose malabsorption occurs in one-third of the population, so it’s not entirely unlikely that you don’t have this intolerance. However, if your symptoms are more extreme, there is also hereditary fructose intolerance, which only affects about .004% of the population. This extreme intolerance can lead to repercussions as traumatic as liver failure. Usually, this condition is detected early in childhood, though, due to its obvious health effects.
Fructose malabsorption can be exacerbated by eating processed foods, lacking good bacteria in your stomach, digestive complications such as irritable bowel syndrome, or even stress. If you think that you might have fructose malabsorption, common symptoms are nausea, gas, stomach pain, diarrhea, and inability to absorb other nutrients that might be positive, such as iron. Malabsorption has even been linked to low tryptophan levels which can cause depression.
Those who have existing digestive and gut disorders are at a higher risk for fructose malabsorption. Many people confuse gluten complications with fructose malabsorption, so if removing or lessening gluten from your diet isn’t fixing your issues, consider looking into fructose malabsorption.
How is it diagnosed?
The diagnostic process of fructose malabsorption is painless and easy. Usually, the physician will order you to limit your carb intake the night before and not eat the morning of your appointment. At the office, you’ll be administered a high fructose drink and the hydrogen levels in your breath will be monitored in 20 to 30-minute intervals since unabsorbed fructose increases hydrogen levels in your intestines. Another obvious test is to simply remove or greatly lessen fructose from your diet and see if your complications lessen or go away.
How can I lessen my fructose intake?
An effective method of tracking your fructose intake is by journaling or noting every meal and everything you eat. Then you can track your symptoms with your food consumption and see if you notice a correlation.
Lowering your fructose intake generally begins by eliminating sugar from your diet. You can start with products that contain high levels of fructose such as pop, sugary breakfast bars, fruits, honey, and desserts. According to healthline.com, when reading nutritional labels, be aware of contents such as high fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, crystalline fructose, honey, sorbitol, fructooligosaccharides (FOS), corn syrup, and sugar alcohols.
As with any health complication, the best step to take to see better results is to see your physician. They will help refer you to helpful resources and identify a treatment plan that helps you to resolve any complications that go along with fructose malabsorption.
Another great way to minimize your daily intake of fructose is to use low fructose sweeteners in anything that you put sugar in. These substitutes are natural, can be healthy, are low calorie, and still offer the sweet taste of sugar despite being low in fructose content.
Keep in mind that often keeping your fructose levels in check is as simple as checking the labels of the food that you buy and the food that you eat. This can be difficult when eating out, but there are usually resources online to tell you the contents of what you’re eating. Also, as you begin to watch for high fructose foods, you’ll eventually get into a rhythm and you’ll be able to identify high and low fructose recipes without even looking them up.
Healthy choices as simple as getting more sleep can decrease your desire to gorge yourself on sweet snacks. Low amounts of sleep have been linked to high intakes of sugary junk foods. Here are some natural sweeteners that can help you to lower your fructose intake:
Low fructose sweeteners
Stevia:
Stevia is a popular natural substitute for sugar that can not only lower your fructose intake but can also have positive impacts on your health. Stevia is grown in South America from the stevia leaf. The stevia leaves contain many sweet compounds. These compounds are sweeter than sugar, so you can get similar levels of sweetness with much lower mass of sweetener.
Furthermore, stevia has been shown to lower high blood pressure in study participants that have preexisting high blood pressure, although no impact was shown on the blood pressure of those with moderate to low blood pressure. These positive blood pressure impacts also extend to those with diabetes. In studies performed on rats, stevia was shown to lessen plaque buildup in arteries and to increase insulin sensitivity.
The only downside to stevia, as with many healthy things, is that many people don’t prefer the taste of stevia to sugar. There are various types of stevia, however, and trying various types of it might be worth the time it takes to settle on one you like.
Rice Syrup:
Popular in Asia, rice syrup is one of the low fructose sweeteners that is mostly made of glucose and maltose. It is similar in taste to honey with a more caramel tint to it. As opposed to stevia, however, rice syrup can be a substantial source of carbs and calories and doesn’t necessarily contain any beneficial nutrients.
However, if fructose intake is your main issue, rice syrup can help you to lower your intake. Also, if you have complications with blood pressure, rice syrup can raise blood pressure even more than sugar due to its high glycemic index.
In Summary:
When it comes down to it, identifying a low fructose sweetener will require some trade-offs. However, it will be worth the effort in the long run when you feel better due to the alleviation of digestive issues.
Stevia is a great option for removing fructose and increasing your overall health, but you might sacrifice some of the addicting sugar taste in return. Rice syrup is effective in lowering fructose levels and tastes great but isn’t ideal for anyone who has blood pressure issues.
The best way to lower your fructose content and maintain your health is of course to simply cut out sweets from your diet entirely. It can be a tough transition since most of us are literally addicted to sugar and the comfort that it brings psychologically. To do this, beware of the amounts of sugar that are in low-fat options of many of your foods such as yogurt and salad dressing.
Often, fat in low-fat foods is simply substituted with sugar. Cut out processed foods, cooking for yourself from scratch is nearly always a healthier alternative than buying something pre-made or processed. It’s generally cheaper too, so your body and budget will thank you.
Although many health forums and websites might offer various sugar alcohols such as xylitol and erythritol if fructose intolerance is your issue you should avoid these alternatives at all costs. These sugar alcohols are usually identifiable by their organic suffix of “-ol” as in alcohol. They are high in fructose and will only exacerbate your complications.
This also goes for high fructose substitutes such as yacon syrup. However, if you’re attempting to lower your fructose intake solely due to high blood pressure, sugar alcohol substitutes can effectively lower your blood pressure despite their high fructose content. But if digestive and stomach complications are plaguing you, stay away from sugar alcohols.
Also, popular sugar alternatives such as honey, molasses, or syrup aren’t going to benefit you significantly either. These may have slightly lower levels of fructose, but it’s an insignificant difference and chances are your complications will persist.
Monosaccharide and net fructose content of common foods and ingredients
Final thoughts: Low fructose sweeteners for fructose intolerance
Hopefully this article has helped you to identify a path to lower fructose intake and a healthier life overall. Stay strong in cutting back on those sugary foods and research other healthy choices you can make outside of your diet, such as getting sleep and exercise or drinking enough water.
If you begin to combine multiple healthy choices together, you’ll be surprised at how much clearer your mind is, how much more energy you have, and how great you look. The road to a healthy life can appear to be long but taking it one step at a time can be the key to great results.