Fructose, glucose and feelings of fullness in people and lab models
What it found
Fructose did not clearly leave people or animals feeling less full than glucose.
How the sugars were given mattered more than the sugar type itself.
What they found
Studies in people and animals
Fullness compared to glucose
The evidence does not strongly support the idea that fructose leaves you feeling less full than glucose. The same is true for high-fructose corn syrup compared with regular table sugar.
How the sugar was given
Differences in hunger seemed to depend on when the sugar was taken relative to a meal. Whether it was pure or mixed into food, and the total amount given, also changed the results.
Different body responses
Fructose and glucose leave the stomach at different speeds and are taken up by the gut differently. They also lead to different hormone levels and are used by the body in different ways.
What the authors conclude
- They conclude that the way sugars are given in experiments explains most differences in hunger, rather than any built-in difference between fructose and glucose.
- Their view is that the argument for fructose being less filling than glucose is not convincing.
How it was done
Some scientists have suggested that eating more fructose, especially from high-fructose corn syrup, may play a part in rising obesity rates. Fructose and glucose move through the stomach and gut at different speeds and trigger different hormone responses, so they might affect hunger differently.
Researchers looked at past experiments comparing how fructose and glucose affect eating in both lab models and people. They examined studies that varied when the sugars were given, whether they were pure or mixed into food, and the size of the portion given before a meal.
What it can’t tell you
- We summarised it from the abstract only.
- Because this work pulls together many different experiments, it cannot point to one single cause for changes in hunger.
- Results from lab models cannot always show what happens in people.
Who paid
- Funding
- Funded by NIDDK NIH HHS (from the PubMed record).
- Authors work at
- Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA
The paper
- Title
- Fructose and satiety
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people · animals · lab
- Summarised from
- Abstract only
- Cite
- Moran TH (2009). Fructose and satiety. The Journal of nutrition. doi:10.3945/jn.108.097956Free full textPubMed 19403706DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error