Does excess sugar actually get converted into fat?

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This is a simple way to explain it. The body's cells all want glucose to be the source of energy at all times, this is optimal. Glucose will be circulating in the blood, taken up by the cells, undergo glycolysis in the cytoplasm and get completely oxidated by the mitochondria.

So they key is to make sure the amount of glucose in your blood is sufficient for the body's needs. If there is excess, because of evolution, our body will store it in other forms. Your body has many mechanisms to ensure that this is how your energy stores are managed. Insulin and glucagon are the chief controllers.

So there are 3 possible scenarios for your blood sugar levels:

(1) After a meal, your blood sugar levels will be high from the food you ingest. The pancreas detects this, and releases insulin to remove glucose from the blood, and puts it into cells for storage. Insulin is an "anabolic" hormone. It will use the glucose to build molecules. So insulin acts on muscle cells to take up glucose, and make glycogen. It also stimulates protein production and muscle growth. Insulin will act on fat cells to take up glucose, and make fats. Lastly, it will act on the liver to make liver glycogen.

(2) So hours after eating your meal, as your body uses the blood's glucose, the pancreas detects this. Less insulin is produced, and more glucagon is produced. Glucagon is "catabolic", its job is to get glucose into the blood, so the brain can have energy. So glucagon activates glycogen into glucose. And then it will act on muscle cells to break down proteins into amino acids. Amino acids are the precursors to glucose in the pathway called "gluconeogensis" which occurs in the liver. THIS IS IMPORTANT, because the brain REQUIRES glucose to function, and this is where it gets it from. Some cells (like heart muscle in particular) can use fatty acids and oxidize them completely, so glucagon will also mobilize fatty acids.

(3) In a time of starvation or intense exercise, the body will continue to burn protein and fats. But after a while, the Citric Acid Cycle, which is the central pathway of oxidative metabolism, gets depleted of its contents, and the above pathway of gluconeogenesis gets shut down in favor of a more economic pathway called ketogenesis.


So what does all of this mean? It means that when you eat a lot of carbohydrates, you are in a long-lasting high glucose period. This means your pancreas will release a lot of insulin, and yes, fat cells will take it up, and make fats.

The basis of the Atkins diet is that it will keep your body in (2) and (3). Your body will make ketones through ketogenesis, and urinate them out, essentially dumping calories down the toilet....Show more

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RE:
Does excess sugar actually get converted into fat?
My understanding was that the body burns carbohydrates then fat and finally proteins when it needs energy.

The reason that excessive carbohydrate consumption is a bad idea is that the body will burn off all the simplest fuels first and store the rest ie. Fat.

Am I right in thinking that the......Show more

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That's actually kind of a complicated question. SOME of the sugar you take in gets turned into fat very quickly. (ie, the fructose moves quickly to the liver, which spews it out as VLDL and triglycerides, or stores as liver fat.) But excess blood sugar (glucose), more of gradual process in stages, I think. First glucose is packed into cells for energy (whether you're working out or not, may not make much difference). THEN any excess is stored as glycogen. But you can only store a modest amount of glycogen, so THEN any more excess is converted to body fat....Show more

Does Sugar Turn Into Fat...Show more

Carbohydrates convert to glycerol backbones for triglyceride energy storage so yes there is some conversion.

Glycolysis, in the cytosol (fluid portion) of a cell, does two things. It degrades monosaccharides to generate energy, and it provides glycerol for triglyceride synthesis and these are the main form for energy storage.

The triglycerides are taken in by diet so how much is de novo generated is the real question.
This is a study on de novo synthesis from a high carbohydrate diet.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC507644/
Studies in mice tracing the carbon in lipogenesis of triglycerides shows it does come from glucose or other carbohydrates
http://www.jbc.org/content/284/10/6101.abstract...Show more