PCOS Risk: Can Fructose Alter Developmental Programming?

As a woman with PCOS, are you feeding apple juice or orange juice to your baby? Ouch! Did your mother give you fruit juices and drinks when you were small? Or fructose-sweetened breakfast cereal? Let you have soft drinks? Unfortunate!

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We've said in the past that added fructose, such as "high fructose corn syrup", makes your PCOS worse. (However, the fructose in whole fresh or frozen fruit is OK, in moderation.)

Just recently, the Department of Preventive Medicine and Childhood Obesity Research Centre at the University of Southern California released a study on the effect of fructose consumption during early human development.

They said: "high fructose exposure during critical periods of development of the fetus, neonate and infant can act as an obesogen (something that makes you fat) by affecting lifelong neuroendocrine function, appetite control, feeding behavior, adipogenesis (fat creation), fat distribution and metabolic systems. These changes ultimately favor the long-term development of obesity and associated metabolic risk."

So if you have PCOS, do you also have any of the problems listed above? Like being overweight? Or having trouble controlling your appetite? This research is suggesting that your PCOS symptoms might be partially related to what happened to you while in your mother's womb and while you were a very young child.

In other words, fructose is more than just calories that taste good. It is a substance that messes up your entire body -- and contributes to problems for the rest of your life!

Fructose Is a Risk to You and Future Family if You Have PCOS

If you're trying to conceive, are pregnant, or have children, I recommend that you to examine labels of all products and avoid those with any added sweeteners. Keep in mind that a product can contain fructose even if the word "fructose" does not appear on the label. Consult our diet ebook for details.

Secondly, if you're an adult, all of the medical research strongly indicates you should stay away from all added sweeteners, including fructose added to food products or beverages.

Thirdly, while excessive fructose alone will damage your health, it's really the combination of fructose with hundreds of other unnatural things, taken all together, that is causing your trouble.

I don't want to sound like a grump, but fetal and developmental programming is serious stuff, especially if you already have PCOS. It largely determines whether you will have chronic diseases or not. And, it's not just about you. It's also about your future family. It's no fun to have hair on your chin, be way overweight, or have to spend multiple thousands of dollars on in-vitro fertilization. It will certainly be no fun to see your children suffer as you have.

You would be outraged if someone were to hack into your bank account and take your money. By the same token, wouldn't you also be outraged about those things that are hacking into everyone's developmental programming and stealing everyone's future potential for a healthy life?

Removing all fructose-laden foods and beverages from your diet is a good first step to stop the hacking.

Have a look at all the products you consume, even something as "healthy" as ketchup. As you can see in the label below, a lot of it contains fructose.

The #2 ingredient is high fructose corn syrup and the #4 ingredient is corn syrup. For all we know, your ketchup could be could be 50% tomato and 50% sweeteners and miscellaneous. There's no way to know how much fructose you're getting in this product.

One more thing -- a word about fruit juices, like apple juice and orange juice. We've been brainwashed into thinking that these products are totally healthy, because they are "100% natural". But there is nothing natural about having the juice of a fruit and leaving the rest of the fruit behind. What you end up with is a big dose of fructose.

Let's say you have a big glass of orange juice, which was squeezed from five oranges. Would you eat five oranges? No. But would you drink the juice and fructose from five oranges in a few minutes? Sure. That fructose is quickly absorbed into your bloodstream and now your body has to struggle to deal with it.

But most importantly, what about your baby or young child? There's a reason why she prefers apple juice to V-8 or tomato juice. It's sweeter! Unfortunately, it's the wrong kind of sweet, according the University of Southern California research.

Let's all do our best to minimize sugars found in processed foods.

Do you remember the old saying "You are what you eat"? Well, it's not an empty slogan. It's the truth.