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Editorial
Added fructose as a principal driver of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a public health crisis
  1. James J DiNicolantonio1,
  2. Ashwin M Subramonian2,3 and
  3. James H O’Keefe1
  1. 1Preventive cardiology, Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
  2. 2Department of medicine, Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre, Madurai, India
  3. 3Alumni, Volgograd State Medical University, Volgograd, Russia
  1. Correspondence to Dr James J DiNicolantonio; jjdinicol{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Fatty liver disease affects up to one out of every two adults in the western world. Data from animal and human studies implicate added sugars (eg, sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup) in the development of fatty liver disease and its consequences. Added fructose in particular, as a component of added sugars, may pose the greatest risk for fatty liver disease. Considering that there is no requirement for added sugars in the diet, dietary guidelines should recommend reducing the intake of added sugars to just 5% of total calories in order to decrease the prevalence of fatty liver disease and its related consequences.

  • fructose
  • fatty liver
  • sucrose

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/openhrt-2017-000631

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors JJD conceived the paper, drafted the main arguments and performed the literature review. AMS helped with the literature review and drafted the initial manuscript. JJD and JOK provided additional edits to the final manuscript.

    • Competing interests JJD is the author of the forthcoming book The Salt Fix.

    • Patient consent None.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement There are no additional data available for this paper.