For the HFCS is the same as table sugar crowd

[Richard D]

A study from Princeton published in the February issue of the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior (PDF) shows that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), used as a cheap sweetener in everything from Coke to Progresso soup, is not the same as table sugar, namely for the way that it makes you gain 48% more weight.

snip

Over 6 months, one group of rats was fed rat chow sweetened with HFCS and another just regular rat chow. The group consuming HFCS showed signed of obesisty, like unusual weight gain, and big increases in triglcerides and fat deposits in the belly. Overall they rats on HFCS ganied 48% more weight than those on a regular diet.

snip

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight."

Since HFCS was introduced into the American food supply as a cost-effective sweetener, the population's obesity rate has shot up from 15% in 1970 to nearly 33% today.

http://consumerist.com/2011/03/studies-hfcs-leads-to-much-more-weight-gain-than-sugar.html

[LiberalEsto]

1. I believe it

HFCS is garbage and doesn't belong in human food. Or rat chow.

[tabatha]

2. Thanks. I heard a botanist once say that they are not the same.

[JackintheGreen]

4. But I heard an actor paid by the corn lobby say they are.

What am I supposed to believe?

[truedelphi]

5. Hey, for that one actor, the HFCS thing-ee

Clearly has some benefits.

And from making that commercial, he will be able to have all the organic sugar he wants and needs.

[truedelphi]

7. A person has to ingest a lot more water

To flush out the metabolic byproducts of the HFCS than to flush out the metabolic byproducts of sugar or honey.

And of course, many kids no longer drink water - it is soda, soda, soda.

[JackintheGreen]

3. I'm on board

I have tried very hard to cut HFCS out of my family diet for a few years now. Whether or not "sugar is sugar" as the corn lobby assures me, I hate the obvious attempt at manipulation.

However, let's see the study duplicated. Let's see the variables better controlled ("regular" rat chow? Does that mean with sugar vs. HFCS, or without any added sugar? Like, why would sugar be added to rat chow in the first place? Are we comparing sweetened (with HFCS) vs. non-sweetened rat chow? Etc.)

[pecwae]

6. I proved it to myself.

I stopped using any product containing HFCS. I still ate what I wanted; HFCS was the only difference. I lost weight without doing anything else.

[GKirk]

11. You don't lose weight unless

you take in less calories or exercise more.

If you cut out HFCS and didn't replace it with foods with an equal amount of calories, yes you would lose weight.

[Lorien]

13. Read the article. nt

[louis-t]

8. One qualifier has always been "in moderation".

It's very hard to do HFCS in moderation. It's in EVERYTHING in large amounts. It's the second most abundant ingredient in thousands of products. The industry wants to be able to call it "sugar" and not distinguish between the two.

[stockholmer]

9. Cancer cells slurp up fructose, US study finds (plus many more, links included)

Cancer cells slurp up fructose, US study finds

(High-fructose corn syrup contains 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFN0210830520100802

Study shows fructose used differently from glucose

* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars

WASHINGTON Aug 2 (Reuters) – Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.

Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.

They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.

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New Studies Fan Flames of Corn Syrup Debate

http://www.aolnews.com/article/new-studies-fan-flames-of-corn-syrup-debate/19412768

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Sugar Is Back on Food Labels, This Time as a Selling Point

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/dining/21sugar.html?_r=1;
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High fructose corn syrup the cause of obesity epidemic, new study suggests

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Nutrition/Food/high_fructose_corn_syrup_the_cause_of_obesity_epidemic_250310081.html

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HFCS - the poison that promotes obesity and liver damage

http://www.naturalnews.com/029403_high_fructose_corn_syrup_liver_damage.html


"In the first study, published in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, researchers from Princeton University found that rats consuming high fructose corn syrup gained more weight and developed more cardiovascular risk factors than rats consuming equivalent amounts of sucrose.

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, " researcher Bart Hoebel said.

Hoebel and colleagues fed two groups of rats an identical diet, supplemented with one of two sweetened beverages. One beverage consisted of a sucrose solution in concentrations similar to those found in many sweetened beverages. The other consisted of a high-fructose corn syrup solution at roughly half the concentration of a typical soda. The researchers found that the rats consuming the corn syrup solution gained significantly more weight than the rats consuming the sucrose solution................."

snip

"Another study, conducted by Duke University researchers, once again implicates high-fructose corn syrup in a heightened risk of liver damage.

Previous research has suggested that large amounts of fructose liver in the same way as excessive alcohol consumption. Another study linked high-fructose corn syrup specifically with a form of liver scarring known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

The new study, published in the Journal of Hepatology, found that high-fructose corn syrup worsened the effects of NAFLD.

"We found that increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup was associated with scarring in the liver ... among patients with NAFLD," researcher Manal Abdelmalek said.

The researchers analyzed the diets and livers of 427 adults with NAFLD, and found that only 19 percent of them never consumed fructose-containing beverages. In contrast, 52 percent of participants had between one and six servings of a fructose-containing beverage per week, while another 29 percent had at least one serving per day. The higher patients' fructose intake, the worse the scarring of their livers."

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High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring, Research Suggests

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100322204628.htm

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Half of the US will have or well on the way to having Diabetes by 2020

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/23/us-unitedhealth-diabetes-idUSTRE6AM0NH20101123

[laconicsax]

10. Oh, geez...not this shit again.

Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose. Only artificially sweetened beverages aren't "fructose-containing beverages." Wine is a "fructose-containing beverage" as are most liquors and beers.

Teaspoon of sugar with your coffee? You're drinking a "fructose-containing beverage." Eat an apple? You're eating fructose.

HCFS may be an unhealthy sweetener, but treating fructose like it's some evil poison is ridiculous.

[cleanhippie]

18. Can you clarify?

Are you saying that there is little or no difference between fructose and HFCS?

[laconicsax]

19. There's a difference, and that difference is pretty fundamental.

Fructose is a basic sugar, or monosaccharide. Another common monosaccharide is glucose, which combines with fructose to make the disaccharide sucrose, AKA table sugar.

Table sugar is 50-50 fructose-glucose. The HCFS generally used in soft drinks is 55-45 fructose-glucose. The HCFS in foods is 42-58 fructose-glucose.

Think about that for a minute...the obesity "epidemic" is blamed partially on replacing sugar with HCFS in foods because fructose is teh evul, yet a loaf of bread made with HCFS has LESS fructose than if it were made with table sugar.

The phrase, "fructose-containing" serves no purpose other than to play to the completely irrational "zOMG! Fructose will rape my children" hysteria. Fruit and fruit derivatives are "fructose-containing," table sugar is "fructose-containing."

An analogy might be to equate carbon with benzene and write about the dangers of "carbon-containing" compounds.

[cleanhippie]

20. So how does that relate to the studies

that show mice that become (or show sign of) obesity compared to the control that only gets "regular" or "natural" fructose?

I am not disagreeing with you, its just that I have read that the molecular composition of HFCS is much different that "regular" fructose, and it is that difference that is causing the problem.

[laconicsax]

21. The molecular composition is very different because HCFS has both fructose and glucose.

That's the short version.

The thing to remember is that fructose is a monosaccharide--a basic sugar. HCFS contains both fructose and glucose (another monosaccharide), so there's no possible way for it to have the same composition as simple fructose.

As for obesity, I've read that the big issue is that fructose doesn't produce and insulin response, which would end up creating a sense of being 'full' after eating. The problem I see with connecting that to HCFS is that in most foods (including baked goods), there's less fructose in the HCFS used than if regular sugar was used (42% compared to 50%).

A more likely connection is simple calories. HCFS 42 isn't as sweet as table sugar, so more would need to be used to compensate...leading to more calories. Since HCFS is a cheap and easy way to make something sweeter, and our brains prefer sweeter foods, it's become ubiquitous, further increasing the calories in basic foods.

[jeff47]

12. Some things in their results bothers me.

From the paper: http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/HFCS_Rats_10.pdf

There was no overall difference in total caloric intake (sugar plus chow) among the sucrose group and two HFCS groups. Further, no difference was found in HFCS intake and total overall caloric intake in the groups given 12-h access versus 24-h access.

So...all groups ate the same amount of calories. Yet one group got heavier. This doesn't add up. I would have liked for the researchers to address how that happened. And before you say "HFCS! DUH!!" the 24-hour HFCS group wasn't the heaviest...in results section 3.1.

However, this leads to the second problem: Results section 3.2, the long-term study. In that part of the study, the 24-hour HFCS group was the heaviest. Glancing at the graphs shows that the 24-hour HFCS group was always the heaviest, including during the timeframe used in the first part of the study. And I don't see where they address the conflict between their two experiments.

These kinds of omissions bother me. Scientists should be far more critical of their own experiments, especially if there is any inconsistency in their results.

(Before anyone jumps on this post, I'm not claiming their results are invalid, nor am I calling them "not scientists". I'm saying they should have done a better job with their paper)

[laconicsax]

14. Just borrow a torch and pitchfork from the person on your left. n/t

[Abq_Sarah]

17. Because it's not just about the calories?

I know we've all been taught it's strictly calories in / calories out but that would only hold true in a closed system if every single calorie were metabolized in exactly the same way... and that ain't the human body at work.

[BadgerKid]

15. The polarization of this topic makes it difficult to reply, but here it is.

After years of trying to understand the subject, the following picture emerges to me, FWIW.

FACTS:

Glucose fuels muscles and the brain whereas fructose must be processed by the liver. The liver can process fructose only at a certain rate (which I assume could be different from person to person). Excesses of any sugars (in the generic sense) get sent to biochemical pathways that lead to direct synthesis of fat.

Our livers have a better control on digesting fructose when it is chemically bonded to another sugar molecule than when it is ingested in single-molecule form. A sucrose molecule is one glucose molecule chemically bonded to one fructose molecule. The fructose in HFCS (any ratio, even 50/50) is all single-molecule glucose plus single-molecule fructose just by the nature of product. Fruit (possibly honey, I'd have to check) also contains single-molecule fructose.


Personal take:

If HFCS didn't exist and we gorged on fruit, we, too, would develop fatty deposits. This "fact" is exploited by animals that hibernate for the winter and by people fattening up ducks for human consumption. So it seems to work all too well.

Since so many pre-packaged foods contain added sweetener, which tends to be HFCS of some variety, we're unconsciously ingesting more calories and therefore more (free-form) fructose than ever before. That, plus we're a less active society than decades ago.

I fault the food industry for several reasons (e.g., over-salting, over-sweetening, using more trans fats than are naturally occurring), but I try to assume responsibility to self-monitor my body insofar as I can. I know this is possible with my particular genetics, having once forced myself anorexic by refusing all processed foods and overexercising to a fault.

I really don't mean to judge; we all have our own situations and circumstances. And we don't yet know the full ramifications of factors like artificial ingredients, agrochemicals, endocrine disruptors, etc.

[laconicsax]

16. How DARE you bring rational thought to a discussion of HCFS!

:applause: