James Silverton wrote:
>
> I wish people would specify what they mean. I'm quite willing to accept
> that too much "sugar" is a bad idea in general ...

Americans now eat many times as much sugar as in decades past. The rate
of diabetes is much higher. Too much sugar in general is bad. Worse
for people who already have problems.

> but table sugar is
> *sucrose*, which is gluco-furanose. In other words, *equal* amounts of
> glucose and fructose linked by an easily broken bond.

There are studies done with rats fed too much of various sorts of sugar.
They get fat. Calorie for calorie the ones fed HFCS get fatter so HFCS
is worse than other types of sugar. Realistically the difference among
types of sugar is small compared to the over use of sugar in general.

> What sort of
> "sugar" does the body make from starches? Is it glucose or what?

Starches are digested into glucose. It's a lot of glucose all bonded
together.

Fructose is an alternate type of sugar that is converted to glucose in
the liver. Whatever type of sugar that's eaten it gets converted to
glucose first if it didn't start out as glucose and then it's used for
fuel. I don't know how the ribose in DNA/RNA is made, probably from
glucose.

The difference is digested into glucose versus digested into simple
sugars and then converted from another type of sugar into glucose.

> Does eating excessive amounts of glucose cause problems?

Yes. Generally too much sugar causes problems. How much is too much
depends on the type of sugar. Glucose is the probably the least harmful
calorie for calorie but Americans eat sugar by the pound. The
differences among types matters less than the total amount.