THE CONTRIBUTION OF NATURALLY LABELED C-13 FRUCTOSE TO GLUCOSE APPEARANCE IN HUMANS

Among monosaccharides, fructose has a small hyperglycaemic effect. In order to better explain the mechanisms which cause this metabolic property, we used tracers labelled with stable isotopes (deuterated glucose and naturally C-13 labelled fructose) to quantify the overall glucose appearance, the rate of appearance in plasma of the C-13 glucose synthesized from fructose, and the fructose-oxidation in vivo in man during a 6-h period following ingestion of 0.5 and 1 g.kg-1 fructose. Fructose had a very small effect on overall glucose appearance (NS). During the 6 h of the study, it was found that the overall glucose appearance was 0.87 +/- 0.06 and 0.89 +/- 0.06 g.kg-1 (NS). The amount of glucose synthesized from fructose was 0.27 +/- 0.04 and 0.51 +/- 0.03 g.kg-1 (p < 0.01) representing 31 % and 57 % of overall glucose appearance (p < 0.01); the non-fructose glucose production was 0.60 +/- 0.02 and 0.38 +/- 0.03 g.kg-1 (p < 0.05) after the 0.5 and 1 g.kg-1 load, respectively. Fructose oxidation was 0.28 +/- 0.03 and 0.59 +/- 0.07 g.kg-1 after the 0.5 and 1 g.kg-1 load respectively (p < 0.01) representing 56 % and 59 % of the fructose loads (NS). These data show that the low hyperglycaemic effect of fructose is explained by its very small effect on overall glucose appearance and that fructose has a sparing effect on glucose metabolism.