High Fructose Corn Syrup - No Worse Than Sugar?
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contains approximately 59 percent fructose and 41 percent glucose, while fruits juices contain a ratio of 50 percent glucose to 50 percent fructose. There really is no difference. HFCS is no better and no worse than any sugared beverage or fruit juice, it is just cheaper.
When manufacturers process corn for oil, the residue is a sugary liquid that used to be thrown away. In the 1950s, soft drink makers discovered that HFCS could be added to sweet drinks at a fraction of the cost of cane sugar. Then scientists noticed that Americans have gotten progressively fatter from the 1950s to the present. This is the same period that HFCS was added to the American diet.
In the following years, many respected scientists tried to link HFCS to the obesity epidemic. However, we now have multiple studies showing that any kind of sugar in liquid form can make you fat (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May 2008).
When you eat sugar in solid form, such as in a cookie, you eat less of other foods because the solid food fills you up. However, in liquid form, sugar supplies calories without making you feel full. When you drink any liquid containing sugar, you do not reduce your intake of food to compensate. Sugar in liquid form is not recognized by your brain as extra calories and therefore does not suppress appetite.
Today almost all researchers agree that HFCS is no worse than any other liquid sugar. All forms of sugar-water can make you fat. That includes fruit juices, sugar added to your coffee or tea, and any other sugared drinks.
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A practicing physician for more than 40 years and a radio talk show host for 25, Dr. Mirkin is a graduate of Harvard University and Baylor University College of Medicine. He is one of a very few doctors board-certified in four specialties: Sports Medicine, Allergy and Immunology, Pediatrics and Pediatric Immunology.
Read more at www.drmirkin.com.
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Comments
Anonymous
HFCS no different than sugar? What about the mercury content? http://www.healthiertalk.com/mer...
Rockwell
So Coke is the same as OJ? Not buying that...
Anonymous
Recent studies show HFCS is associated with greater weight gain, more insulin resistance and greater cardiovascular risk than sucrose.
Joe3
So many people are like sheep and just follow others opinions without doing their own research before making their own conclusions. If you are really interested there is a lot of data published regarding Monosaccharides, Disaccharides, and polysaccharides and how they are processed by the body.
HFCS is just fructose and sucrose blended to contain between 55% and 95% fructose. (Table sugar is 50% fructose and 50% sucrose) America is getting fatter because we consume too much sugar and too little good fats as well as not enough natural foods, all while sitting on out butts all day without any exercise.
The majority of the articles these days dramatize what they are trying to say, because it seems like the only way people will listen and change their habits is if you scare them into it!
It is simple, eat less sugar, and exercise more! If we all did this, then the sugar and HFCS manufacturers would make less profit, and figure out other products so sell, that are perhaps healthier to consume.
I am trying to recall the exact numbers, in the early 1980's we consumed about 120 lbs of sugar a year, per person. In 2000 we consumed 158 lbs/person. 65 lbs of that being in the beverages we drinK. 30% more sugar, 30% fatter.
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