Fructose-containing added sugars, such as sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, have
been experimentally, epidemiologically, and clinically shown to be involved in the current
epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Here we track this history of intake of sugar as it relates
to these epidemics. Key experimental studies that have identified mechanisms by which
fructose causes obesity and diabetes are reviewed, as well as the evidence that the uricase
mutation that occurred in the mid-Miocene in ancestral humans acted as a “thrifty gene” that …