High Fructose Corn Syrup
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is on my top four worst things to put in your mouth. There is mounting information on how HFCS is affecting our health. However, there is a huge push from the corn industry to change public opinion with statements like there evidence is not conclusive, and commercials that state “there is no difference between High Fructose Corn Syrup and sugar.” When and industry resorts to comparing themselves to a food that is devoid of any nutrition whatsoever, you have to start to ask what ‘s going on?
I am going to take you through some of the major points from many sources.
Not too long back Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology did a 2 hour lecture discussing this and it had over 800,000 people watching it . Click here to watch this video
According to Lustig's hypothesis, sugar in large quantities drives up insulin secretion. This insulin floods the brain, and in particular the hypothalamus, which regulates energy use in the body. As a result, leptin, a hormone that tells the brain when the body needs more or less energy, can't get its signal to the hypothalamus because the insulin is blocking the way.
The result is that the body is thrown into starvation mode -- the brain thinks it isn't getting enough energy, so it needs more calories and it needs to save energy, he said. People end up feeling the symptoms of starvation, including malaise, depression, a lack of motivation and, of course, hunger. This cycle leads to eating more food, without being satisfied and towards obesity.
If you start reading the labels of processed foods and you may be surprised at the number of items from spaghetti sauce to English muffins that contain high-fructose corn syrup There was a time when these types of foods were sweetened with good old-fashioned sugar. But in the 30-plus years since it was introduced, HFCS has gone from accounting for less than 1 percent of caloric sweeteners used in processed food, to representing 42 percent of added caloric sweeteners mainly because it is cheaper and sweeter.
There’s something else that has risen dramatically in the past three decades: the obesity rate, and Type 2 diabetes. Current estimates are that 60 million American adults (age 20 or older) are obese. That's 30 percent of the population. Childhood obesity has tripled in that time. Could there be a link?
The typical American over the age of two consumes more than 300 calories daily from sugar and other caloric sweeteners (including HFCS). That's 19 teaspoons of sweetener (75 grams) a day! One-sixth of our calorie intake is coming from a food ingredient that provides absolutely no nutritional benefit!
In 2004, researchers from the Louisiana State University and University of North Carolina published a paper that theorized that high-fructose corn syrup in beverages could play a role in the obesity epidemic. They looked at the correlation between the 1,000 percent increase in high-fructose corn syrup consumption between 1970 and 1990, and a correlating rise in obesity rates. Because of the way the body metabolizes fructose from beverages, the researchers argued, it may play a role in the obesity epidemic.
A study of rats by researchers from the University of Florida suggests that a diet high in fructose may lead the body to develop a resistance to a protein called leptin, which helps control appetite. Over the course of 6 or 7 months, "both male and female rats with access to HFCS gained significantly more body weight than control groups. This increase in body weight with HFCS was accompanied by an increase in adipose fat, notably in the abdominal region, and elevated circulating triglyceride levels. Translated to humans, these results suggest that excessive consumption of HFCS may contribute to the incidence of obesity". The study found that rats consuming rat chow with HFCS gained 48% more weight than rats that only consumed rat chow.
Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup?
A pilot study reported that some high-fructose corn syrup manufactured in the U.S. in 2005 contained mercury in quantities potentially relevant to human health. The mercury appeared to come from preparations of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, two chemicals used to produce high-fructose corn syrup.
Heart Disease linked to High Fructose Corn Syrup?
According to Brown, Dulloo and Montani (2008), studies performed on animals have shown a link between sugar intake and cardiovascular disease, specifically hypertension, tachycardia and ventricular hypertrophy. In these studies, glucose was shown to be unrelated to hypertension, whereas fructose was shown to be the more damaging sugar component. An 8% solution of fructose was shown to induce left ventricle hypertrophy, hypertension and tachycardia, within a week of its substitution for drinking water, in populations of rats
According to Brown, Dulloo and Montani, fructose consumption is linked to the onset of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (2008). In healthy individuals after two weeks on a high-fructose diet, a 25% reduction in insulin sensitivity was seen. Researchers believe that the relationship between HFCS and insulin resistance is dose dependent based on the fructose content, because in individuals who were given 3g of fructose per kg of body weight per day insulin resistance was observed, however a lower dose of fructose (1.5g per kg of body weight per day) did not produce the same insulin resistance.
The information above gives me great pause about High Fructose Corn syrup, and just because short term studies can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is the cause of all the problems listed, and wise consumer will be proactive towards their health, read labels and not buy anything that has High Fructose Corn Syrup.
I am going to take you through some of the major points from many sources.
Not too long back Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology did a 2 hour lecture discussing this and it had over 800,000 people watching it . Click here to watch this video
According to Lustig's hypothesis, sugar in large quantities drives up insulin secretion. This insulin floods the brain, and in particular the hypothalamus, which regulates energy use in the body. As a result, leptin, a hormone that tells the brain when the body needs more or less energy, can't get its signal to the hypothalamus because the insulin is blocking the way.
The result is that the body is thrown into starvation mode -- the brain thinks it isn't getting enough energy, so it needs more calories and it needs to save energy, he said. People end up feeling the symptoms of starvation, including malaise, depression, a lack of motivation and, of course, hunger. This cycle leads to eating more food, without being satisfied and towards obesity.
If you start reading the labels of processed foods and you may be surprised at the number of items from spaghetti sauce to English muffins that contain high-fructose corn syrup There was a time when these types of foods were sweetened with good old-fashioned sugar. But in the 30-plus years since it was introduced, HFCS has gone from accounting for less than 1 percent of caloric sweeteners used in processed food, to representing 42 percent of added caloric sweeteners mainly because it is cheaper and sweeter.
There’s something else that has risen dramatically in the past three decades: the obesity rate, and Type 2 diabetes. Current estimates are that 60 million American adults (age 20 or older) are obese. That's 30 percent of the population. Childhood obesity has tripled in that time. Could there be a link?
The typical American over the age of two consumes more than 300 calories daily from sugar and other caloric sweeteners (including HFCS). That's 19 teaspoons of sweetener (75 grams) a day! One-sixth of our calorie intake is coming from a food ingredient that provides absolutely no nutritional benefit!
In 2004, researchers from the Louisiana State University and University of North Carolina published a paper that theorized that high-fructose corn syrup in beverages could play a role in the obesity epidemic. They looked at the correlation between the 1,000 percent increase in high-fructose corn syrup consumption between 1970 and 1990, and a correlating rise in obesity rates. Because of the way the body metabolizes fructose from beverages, the researchers argued, it may play a role in the obesity epidemic.
A study of rats by researchers from the University of Florida suggests that a diet high in fructose may lead the body to develop a resistance to a protein called leptin, which helps control appetite. Over the course of 6 or 7 months, "both male and female rats with access to HFCS gained significantly more body weight than control groups. This increase in body weight with HFCS was accompanied by an increase in adipose fat, notably in the abdominal region, and elevated circulating triglyceride levels. Translated to humans, these results suggest that excessive consumption of HFCS may contribute to the incidence of obesity". The study found that rats consuming rat chow with HFCS gained 48% more weight than rats that only consumed rat chow.
Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup?
A pilot study reported that some high-fructose corn syrup manufactured in the U.S. in 2005 contained mercury in quantities potentially relevant to human health. The mercury appeared to come from preparations of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, two chemicals used to produce high-fructose corn syrup.
Heart Disease linked to High Fructose Corn Syrup?
According to Brown, Dulloo and Montani (2008), studies performed on animals have shown a link between sugar intake and cardiovascular disease, specifically hypertension, tachycardia and ventricular hypertrophy. In these studies, glucose was shown to be unrelated to hypertension, whereas fructose was shown to be the more damaging sugar component. An 8% solution of fructose was shown to induce left ventricle hypertrophy, hypertension and tachycardia, within a week of its substitution for drinking water, in populations of rats
According to Brown, Dulloo and Montani, fructose consumption is linked to the onset of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (2008). In healthy individuals after two weeks on a high-fructose diet, a 25% reduction in insulin sensitivity was seen. Researchers believe that the relationship between HFCS and insulin resistance is dose dependent based on the fructose content, because in individuals who were given 3g of fructose per kg of body weight per day insulin resistance was observed, however a lower dose of fructose (1.5g per kg of body weight per day) did not produce the same insulin resistance.
The information above gives me great pause about High Fructose Corn syrup, and just because short term studies can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is the cause of all the problems listed, and wise consumer will be proactive towards their health, read labels and not buy anything that has High Fructose Corn Syrup.