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Why Switching from Fructose to Starch Could Be the Key to Better Health

The science from fast-food to soft drinks to fructose to starch to fruits — maybe it’s not so much about starches after all.

Shin Jie Yong, MSc (Res)
6 min readMay 19, 2020
Image by rawpixel.com

What’s in Fast-food That Promote Weight Gain?

A 2014 study by the World Health Organization (WHO) investigated the relationship between fast food consumption and BMI in 25 high-income countries. “After adjustment for covariates, each 1-unit increase in annual fast food transactions per capita was associated with an increase of 0.033 BMI,” the study found. “Only the intake of soft drinks — not animal fat or total calories — mediated the observed association.”

This study means that soft drinks are an independent predictor of weight gain, regardless of the fast food. Soft drinks are responsible for the effects of fast food on weight gain, in other words.

But what about studies showing otherwise?

“The Literature is Polluted”

A 2013 systematic review by Maira Bes-Rastrollo, a professor of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Navarra, and colleagues looked at 17 systematic reviews that examine the link between soft drinks and…

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Shin Jie Yong, MSc (Res)
Shin Jie Yong, MSc (Res)

Written by Shin Jie Yong, MSc (Res)

Named Stanford's world top 1% scientists | Medium's boost nominator | National athlete | Ghostwriter | Get my Substack: https://theinfectedneuron.substack.com/

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