The effect of dietary sucrose on blood lipids, serum insulin, platelet adhesiveness and body weight in human volunteers.

A study was made of the effect of high or low intake of sucrose for periods of 14 days in a group of nineteen apparently healthy men. The high sucrose diet produced no change in blood levels of cholesterol or phospholipids, or in glucose tolerance, but it produced a significant rise in triglycerides in all nineteen men. In six of them, there was in addition a rise in serum immunoreactive insulin, especially during the glucose tolerance test, and these same six subjects also showed a considerable increase in weight and a significant increase in platelet adhesiveness. There was no difference between the six subjects and the remaining thirteen in any of the other measurements, or in the diets they consumed during the experiment. The changes produced by sucrose had disappeared, or nearly so, after 14 days of normal diet. It is suggested that the effect of sucrose in producing hyperinsulinism may be more relevant to its possible role in the aetiology of ischaemic heart disease than its effect on blood lipids. It is further suggested that only some individuals are susceptible to the development of ischaemic heart disease by dietary sucrose, and that these may be identified as those that show ‘sucrose-induced hyperinsulinism’.