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Effect of dietary manipulations on plasma leptin

International Journal of Obesity volume 24, pages 1542–1543 (2000)Cite this article

In their recent article on the effects of dietary manipulations on plasma leptin, Raben and Astrup1 report that a sucrose-rich diet was found to be responsible for raised leptin concentrations. In the authors’ opinion, ‘... sucrose per se was the reason for the increased leptin levels.’ 1. The latter, however, instead of reflecting the effect of sucrose per se, may simply be due to the fact that sucrose was mostly consumed in un-physiological forms, namely, in solid form or in concentrations exceeding 4.18 MJ/l, which is the physiological limit imposed by evolution,2 this limit being the one of the carbohydrate solutions present in fresh fruit, our main ancestral food for millions of years, during which it moulded our metabolic physiology.2

As a result of the evolutionary moulding produced by fresh fruit, if sucrose is consumed in solutions up to 4.18 MJ/l it leaves the stomach progressively more slowly with increasing concentrations, thereby allowing energy to be delivered to the intestine at physiologically constant rates per unit time.2 By contrast, if sucrose is ingested in unnatural forms, ie, in solid form or in concentrations >4.18 MJ/l, it leaves the stomach more rapidly, thus causing the delivery of unphysiologically high amounts of energy to the intestine per unit time.2 When sucrose is consumed in such unnatural forms it constitutes a ‘genetically unknown food’3,4 that is largely responsible for the alarmingly high prevalence of diabetes in newly westernised populations, which were virtually free of diabetes prior to the consumption of concentrated sucrose, the greatest novelty of the recently adopted western foods.3 Westerners, unlike those populations, have achieved passable adaptation to concentrated sugars through millenary natural selection, which accounts for the relatively low prevalence of diabetes in the West.3

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References

  1. Raben A, Astrup A . Leptin is influenced both by predisposition to obesity and diet composition Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2000 24: 450–459.

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  2. Baschetti R . Sucrose metabolism N Z Med J 1997 110: 43.

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  3. Baschetti R . Diabetes epidemic in newly westernized populations: is it due to thrifty genes or to genetically unknown foods? J R Soc Med 1998 91: 622–625.

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  4. Baschetti R . Genetically unknown foods or thrifty genes? Am J Clin Nutr 1999 70: 420–421.

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  5. Baschetti R . High-sucrose diets and insulin sensitivity Am J Clin Nutr 1999 69: 575.

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  1. Retired Medical Inspector, Indian State Railways, CP 1011, Padua, 35100, Italy

    R Baschetti

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  1. R Baschetti
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Baschetti, R. Effect of dietary manipulations on plasma leptin. Int J Obes 24, 1542–1543 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801454

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