Fructose Discovery Could Lead to Treatments for Cancer, Obesity, Diabetes

Fructose, one of the main sugars found in the human diet, is taken in by blood cells, and new research from Stockholm University has unveiled how GLUT5, a protein, transports fructose into the blood on the atomic level. This understanding could lead to additional breakthroughs and novel treatments health issues related to sugar intake, such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

GLUT5 acts somewhat like a gatekeeper, either allowing or blocking the passage of other molecules into blood cells. The study's authors were extremely interested in why fructose is allowed to pass through this way, according to TLN. 

"By revealing how the fructose transporter functions at the atomic level, we can now begin to understand other things about it. For example, how this gatekeeper is selective to fructose from all other thousands of other molecules our cells are constantly bombarded by," Dr. David Drew, researcher at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Stockholm University, said.

The team used a technique called x-ray crystallography to find the structure of GLUT5, which analyzes the positions of atoms. With this process, the researchers were able to build a dimensional model of the protein, according to a news release.

"Many cancer cells, such as those found in breast cancer, have a higher metabolic requirement for sugar and the bottleneck for using sugar is the transport into the cell. Now that we know the structure of the transport protein, it might be possible to design a molecule that specifically jams it and thereby starving the cancer cells," Drew said.

Altered activity of GLUT5 has already been linked to Type 2 diabetes and obesity, and is over expressed in certain tumor cells, according to the study, which was published in the scientific journal Nature.

This discovery is incredibly important to treatment for these diseases, which kill millions per year. Cancer alone is responsible for 7.6 million deaths per year, which averages to about 20,000 people a day, according to Medical News Today. Obesity is associated with one in every five American deaths, and is the direct result of more than 30,000 deaths per year. Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, with roughly nine percent of the population living with the disease, and about 234,000 people dying as a result of the disease.

This research could allow for better treatment plans, and additional help for patients dealing with these sugar intake related diseases.

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