Fried chicken with cola = high fat and high sugar? Research proves: heavy casualties of pancreatic islet cells!

When eating fried chicken, you must drink Coke! Imagine golden fried chicken with crispy skin, tender and juicy, and then a sip of Coke, the bubbles hit the taste buds, refreshing and relieving greasiness. Fried chicken x Coke, double the happiness, those who understand will understand!

However, this CP relationship may be in jeopardy recently. A study published in Cell Metabolism showed that the high-fat and high-sugar combination of fried chicken and cola promotes fructose metabolism in the small intestine. Its metabolite glyceric acid will cause casualties of pancreatic cells and increase the risk of diabetes.

First of all, it should be made clear that the high sugar in this study mainly refers to fructose. After entering the body, fructose is rapidly metabolized by the small intestine to produce metabolites. Only fructose that exceeds the metabolic capacity of the small intestine will enter the liver and colon through the portal vein. However, up to now, we do not fully understand the impact of fructose metabolites.

In the study, scientists found that mice fed a high-fat, high-sugar diet had improved fructose metabolism capacity in the small intestine compared with mice in the control group (normal diet + high-sugar diet), which was mainly manifested in increased expression of fructose metabolism genes and proteins in the small intestine.

Correspondingly, mice fed a high-fat, high-sugar diet had significantly increased levels of fructose metabolites in their blood, especially a fructose metabolite called "glyceric acid."

So, what kind of impact does increased glycerate have? Clinically, there is a group of patients who are born deficient in glycerate kinase, so the level of glycerate in their bodies is much higher than that of normal people. Coincidentally, the risk of diabetes in this group of patients is also higher than that of ordinary people, suggesting that there is a connection between glycerate and diabetes.

Next, the researchers injected glyceric acid into the mice intraperitoneally every day. The results showed that mice that had been injected with glyceric acid intraperitoneally for a long time showed decreased glucose tolerance and insulin secretion in glucose tolerance tests and insulin release tests. However, in the insulin tolerance test, the insulin sensitivity of mice injected with glyceric acid did not change, indicating that the decreased glucose tolerance caused by glyceric acid was mainly due to reduced insulin secretion rather than insulin resistance.

The reason why we emphasize this is because we say that the occurrence of type 2 diabetes induced by a high-fat diet usually goes through the following process - first insulin resistance, peripheral organs' perception of insulin is impaired, glucose intake is reduced, and pancreatic beta cells have to secrete more insulin to compensate so that blood sugar levels can remain normal, but long-term insulin resistance eventually makes the beta cells overwhelmed and insulin secretion is reduced.

Glyceric acid does not go through the step of insulin resistance and directly leads to reduced insulin secretion. Even in the case of a high-fat and high-sugar diet, the large amount of insulin secretion caused by early insulin resistance will temporarily mask the reduced insulin secretion caused by high sugar (glyceric acid).

The last and most important question is, why does glyceric acid cause a decrease in insulin secretion? Researchers found that after 12 weeks of intraperitoneal injection of glyceric acid into mice, glyceric acid deposits in the pancreas, the apoptosis signal of pancreatic β cells is significantly enhanced, the number of β cells is reduced, and the diameter of the pancreatic islets is reduced, indicating that glyceric acid directly damages the pancreatic β cells, which causes the decrease in insulin secretion.

In general, this study shows that a high-fat diet promotes fructose metabolism, leading to increased levels of glycerol in the body, directly damaging pancreatic beta cells, reducing insulin secretion, and accelerating the occurrence of type 2 diabetes.

From a health perspective, high fat and high sugar levels mean double the harm. Next time you eat fried chicken, you’ll have to give it up and opt for sugar-free cola (after all, you’re just a bit of a sugar addict).

References:

Wu Y, Wong CW, Chiles EN, et al. Glycerate from intestinal fructose metabolism induces islet cell damage and glucose intolerance [published online ahead of print, 2022 Jun 1]. Cell Metab.2022;S1550-4131(22)00189-9. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2022.05.007