Researchers at Yale University have discovered that the brain is capable of making fructose - a simple sugar, usually found in fruit, vegetables and honey.
Not all sugars are equal. Glucose is a simple sugar that provides energy for the cells in your body. Fructose has a less important physiological role and has been repeatedly linked to the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes. When there is excess glucose the processes that break it down can become saturated, so the body converts glucose into fructose instead, using a process known as the "polyol pathway", a chemical reaction involved in diabetic complications. The researchers at Yale reported in the journal, JCI Insight, that the brain uses the polyol pathway to produce fructose in the brain.
Unlike glucose, which can be metabolised throughout the body, fructose is normally metabolised almost completely in the liver and also in semen where it produces energy for sperm. Most fructose produced by this pathway is thought to stay inside the cells that make it, as fructose levels in the blood are usually extremely low. These low circulating levels make it unlikely that fructose made in this way reaches the brain in significant amounts, and yet some studies have previously identified very high levels of fructose in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord).
Importantly, research has shown that exposure to fructose can significantly alter the expression of hundreds of genes in the brain, including genes that control metabolism, cell communication, inflammation and brain function. This suggests that fructose is likely to alter brain function.