Dietary Sugar in the Production of Hyperglyceridemia

Abstract

Controlled metabolic studies with sugar and starch feedings were made on 5 patients with carbohydrate-induced form of hyperglyceridemia and on 2 normoglyceridemic boys with essential familial hypercholesteremia. Sugar feeding aggravated the hyperglyceridemia in all hyoerglyceridemic patients and induced hyperglyceridemia in the normoglyceridemic boys. Changing from high sugar to high starch feeding resulted in a fall in the plasma lipid levels of these patients, while their weights remained fairly constant. Study of the fatty acid compositions of plasma lipids of these patients, indicate that sugar-hyperglyceridemia arises primarily through active endogenous lipogenesis. A high sugar intake (comparable to that of calculated average per capita sugar consumption in the United States) could induce hyperglyceridemia even in normal subjects.