The highest level of evidence from systematic review s and meta-analyses of controlled trials has not shown that fructose-containing sugars behave any differently from other forms of digestible carbohydrates .
Fructose-containing sugars can only lead to weight gain and other unintended harms on cardiometabolic risk factors insofar as the excess calories they provide .
Prospect i ve cohort studies , which provide the strongest observational evidence , have shown an association between fructose-containing sugars and cardiometabolic risk including weight gain , cardiovascular disease outcomes and diabetes only when restricted to sugar-sweetened beverages and not for sugars from other sources .
In fact , sugar-sweetened beverages are a marker of an unhealthy lifestyle and their drinkers consume more calories , exercise less , smoke more and have a poor dietary pattern .
Fructose-containing sugars are a focus of attention as a public health target for their putative role in obesity and cardiometabolic disease including diabetes .
The fructose moiety is singled out to be the primary driver for the harms of sugars due to its unique endocrine signal and pathophysiological role .
However , this is only supported by ecological studies , animal models of overfeeding and select human intervention studies with supraphysiological doses or lack of control for energy .
Potato and french fry consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in women.
BACKGROUND Potatoes , a high glycemic form of carbohydrate , are hypothesized to increase insulin resistance and risk of  type 2 diabetes . OBJECTIVE The objective was to examine prospect ively the relation between potato consumption and the risk of  type 2 diabetes .  DESIGN We conducted a prospect i ve study of 84,555 women in the Nurses ' Health Study . At baseline , the women were aged 34 - 59 y , had no history of chronic disease , and completed a vali date d food-frequency  question naire . The participants were followed for 20 y with repeated assessment of diet . RESULTS We documented 4496 new cases of type 2 diabetes .  Potato and french fry consumption were both positively associated with risk of type 2 diabetes after adjustment for age and dietary and nondietary factors . The multivariate relative risk ( RR ) in a comparison between the highest and the lowest quintile of potato intake was 1.14 ( 95 % CI : 1.02 , 1.26 ; P for trend = 0.009 ) . The multivariate RR in a comparison between the highest and the lowest quintile of french fry intake was 1.21 ( 95 % CI : 1.09 , 1.33 ; P for trend < 0.0001 ) . The RR of type 2 diabetes was 1.18 ( 95 % CI : 1.03 , 1.35 ) for 1 daily serving of potatoes and 1.16 ( 95 % CI : 1.05 , 1.29 ) for 2 weekly servings of french fries . The RR of type 2 diabetes for substituting 1 serving potatoes/d for 1 serving whole grains/d was 1.30 ( 95 % CI : 1.08 , 1.57 ) . The association between potato consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes was more pronounced in obese women . CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest a modest positive association between the consumption of potatoes  and the  risk of type 2 diabetes in women . This association was more pronounced when potatoes were substituted for whole grains
The highest level of evidence from systematic review s and meta-analyses of controlled trials has not shown that fructose-containing sugars behave any differently from other forms of digestible carbohydrates .
Fructose-containing sugars can only lead to weight gain and other unintended harms on cardiometabolic risk factors insofar as the excess calories they provide .
Prospect i ve cohort studies , which provide the strongest observational evidence , have shown an association between fructose-containing sugars and cardiometabolic risk including weight gain , cardiovascular disease outcomes and diabetes only when restricted to sugar-sweetened beverages and not for sugars from other sources .
In fact , sugar-sweetened beverages are a marker of an unhealthy lifestyle and their drinkers consume more calories , exercise less , smoke more and have a poor dietary pattern .
Fructose-containing sugars are a focus of attention as a public health target for their putative role in obesity and cardiometabolic disease including diabetes .
The fructose moiety is singled out to be the primary driver for the harms of sugars due to its unique endocrine signal and pathophysiological role .
However , this is only supported by ecological studies , animal models of overfeeding and select human intervention studies with supraphysiological doses or lack of control for energy .