--- title: Fructose and Glucose: Here's More Proof That Sugar Changes Your Brain description: This kind of sugar triggers a very different reaction in the brain canonical: https://time.com/3631616/sugar-brain-fructose/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-12T17:22:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T02:48:58.559Z article:section: Health og:title: The Annoying Thing That's Making You Hungrier og:description: This kind of sugar triggers a very different reaction in the brain og:url: https://time.com/3631616/sugar-brain-fructose/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfb130d83f4a6ad32/69876e6f524fc097fadeb5f6/drinking-soda.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1750 og:image:height: 984 og:image:alt: drinking soda og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Annoying Thing That's Making You Hungrier twitter:description: This kind of sugar triggers a very different reaction in the brain twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfb130d83f4a6ad32/69876e6f524fc097fadeb5f6/drinking-soda.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Annoying Thing That's Making You Hungrier > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 12, 2014 5:22 PM UTC  Boy drinking orange soda Boy drinking orange soda Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 12, 2014 5:22 PM UTC New evidence suggests fructose—the simple sugar present in fruit and fruit juices—may be messing with your brain and appetite in a way that actually makes you hungrier. Dr. Kathleen Page, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, tested the idea when she fed 24 people a sugar-water mixture with one of two types of sugar: glucose or fructose. Each drink had 75 grams—about as much as your typical 24-ounce sugary drink, Page says. Then, she and her team performed an fMRI on the people in the study to see how their brains responded to the sugars, and showed them pictures of food (and non-food items as controls) while they were in the brain scan. Everyone had the chance to try both drinks on two different days. **MORE**: [There’s Even More Sugar In Soda Than You Think](http://time.com/2826750/theres-even-more-sugar-in-soda-than-you-think/) After drinking the fructose mix, people had more activation in some brain regions involved in reward processing when they were looking at pictures of food, Page says, compared to after they consumed the glucose drink. “We think that it might suggest that fructose has less appetite-suppressing effects, and that in turn could motivate people to continue eating, even though they’ve already consumed quite a lot of calories when compared to glucose,” Page says. (For more on the difference between glucose, fructose and sucrose, read this piece about [how all sugars aren’t the same.](http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1892841,00.html)) The findings are preliminary, but brains on glucose behaved as the scientists expected them to when they received an infusion of calories: with _less_ activation in regions that control appetite. In other words, they were sated. Brains on fructose—which is far sweeter than glucose—just appeared to get hungrier. **MORE**: [How Sweet Can Become Toxic](http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/14/how-sweet-can-become-toxic/) Some experts contend that “[sugar is sugar](http://time.com/92545/7-not-so-sweet-lessons-about-sugar/)” and that it’s all equally bad for the body, but this study suggests that glucose and fructose might have very different effects because they’re processed differently in the body, says Page: Glucose is the main sugar that circulates in our bloodstream, and it’s metabolized in highly regulated ways, releasing hormones like insulin and leptin that help us feel full. Fructose, on the other hand, is extracted from our bloodstream directly to the liver, where it’s metabolized. “Our bodies don’t secrete insulin and leptin as much as when we eat pure fructose,” she says. “We think that the differences in some of the responses of these hormones that are important in suppressing appetite may help to explain these findings.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3631616/sugar-brain-fructose/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3631616/sugar-brain-fructose/"},"headline":"The Annoying Thing That's Making You Hungrier","datePublished":"2014-12-12T17:22:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:48:58.559Z","description":"This kind of sugar triggers a very different reaction in the brain","url":"https://time.com/3631616/sugar-brain-fructose/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","Hunger","Sugar","appetite"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfb130d83f4a6ad32/69876e6f524fc097fadeb5f6/drinking-soda.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfb130d83f4a6ad32/69876e6f524fc097fadeb5f6/drinking-soda.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"drinking soda","caption":"drinking soda","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3631616/sugar-brain-fructose/","name":"The Annoying Thing That's Making You Hungrier"}}]}] ```