http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/
"I have a great deal of respect for Lustig’s professional accomplishments, and I share his concern for the nation’s penchant for sitting around and overconsuming food and beverages of all sorts. However, I disagree (as does the bulk of the research) with his myopic, militant focus on fructose avoidance. He’s missing the forest while barking up a single tree."
At the time this was posted about a year ago, it generated a lot of traffic and even a response from Robert Lustig. When I listened to Lustig's radio interview with Jimmy Moore, it appeared he had amended his delivery by estimating fructose's toxicity threshold at 50g/day. That was apparently in response to criticism from Aragon. Other than that, the debate was a ton of energy expended over a very small difference in opinion.
Bottom line - no one thinks consuming a ton of fructose is a great idea. The thing that's interesting is the relatively new idea that fructose is damaging for a different reason than other sugars are, that being that it is metabolized much like alcohol, therefore loading up the liver, and having what seem like accelerating effects on fat gain and metabolic injury.
If there's a question to be debated, it is only over how much is too much. In a sense, nothing is toxic at a low enough level. By the same token, anything can be toxic if consumed in too great a quantity - 3 gallons of water consumed to quickly will kill you.
LeanGains joined the fray to make the point that Lustig's demonization of fructose joins with the chorus of those who like to claim "It's not my fault, I live in a toxic food environment, I can't get well/thin!" "Newsflash", if you abdicate responsibility, you won't solve any problems. Nothing new there. And in that sense, I disagree with Lustig's general attitude that we're all helpless victims of giant food company marketing. Rather, we all have suffered from the non-sense, non-science, USDA dietary guidelines, but any one who relied on the USDA for long for health advice has no one but themselves to blame.
My advice to those who are you struggling to lose weight, maintain weight loss, or recover from metabolic syndrome/diabetes: Stay the heck away from fructose! More specifically, if you want a piece of fruit every day, no problem, but gatorade, sugared soda, and the other commercial sources of sucrose and HFCS sweetened processed foods are not helping your headache.
There's also some evidence that fructose is prime fuel for cancer cells.
I had a young man working for me who would follow up our morning workouts by guzzling a quart of Gatorade and digging in to a box of granola bars. We counted up one day and he was eating over 200g of carbohydrate by 9 AM - most every day. He was an amazing athlete, but 45 pounds overweight, and had no real desire to learn more or change. He had a lesion on his skin examined, at my urging, and it was found to be skin cancer - which of course is probably a coincidence but an excellent example of the odds, nonetheless.
Lastly, don't kid yourself that your kids need a gatorade like recovery drink, ever; just give them a doughnut, which has the same metabolic sucker punch, but they'll enjoy the doughnut more.
So as Dirty Harry used to say, "you have to ask yourself"- "How much do I really want that dose of fructose?"
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