Heat Forms Potentially Harmful Substance In High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Bee Study Finds

[happy_liberal]

They already found out what is killing the bees. We do not need to vaccinate the bees. They need to stop poisoning them! And this study has obvious implications for human health as well....I'm sure our FDA is looking into this....right.....


ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2009) — Researchers have established the conditions that foster formation of potentially dangerous levels of a toxic substance in the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that is often fed to honey bees. Their study, which appears in the current issue of ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, may also have implications for soft drinks and dozens of other human foods that contain HFCS. The substance, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), forms mainly from heating fructose.

In the new study, Blaise LeBlanc and Gillian Eggleston and colleagues note HFCS's ubiquitous usage as a sweetener in beverages and processed foods. Some commercial beekeepers also feed it to bees to increase reproduction and honey production. When exposed to warm temperatures, HFCS can form HMF and kill honeybees. Some researchers believe that HMF may be a factor in Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that has killed at least one-third of the honeybee population in the United States.

The scientists measured levels of HMF in HFCS products from different manufacturers over a period of 35 days at different temperatures. As temperatures rose, levels of HMF increased steadily. Levels jumped dramatically at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The data are important for commercial beekeepers, for manufacturers of HFCS, and for purposes of food storage. Because HFCS is incorporated as a sweetener in many processed foods, the data from this study are important for human health as well," the report states. It adds that studies have linked HMF to DNA damage in humans. In addition, HMF breaks down in the body to other substances potentially more harmful than HMF.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090826110118.htm

[no_hypocrisy]

1. If beekeepers started a class action against manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup,

we'd have access to verifiable information about its potential to do harm on record.

[Ian David]

2. Should we also stop cooking fruit on the grill? n/t

[Aristus]

8. Fruit contains natural sugars that human beings have been digesting for a million years.

HFCS was created in the 1950's. It's a man-made molecule that our bodies were never meant to digest. Maybe in a million years, if we're still around, we'll be better able to digest HFCS. But not right now.

Yours is a thoughtless argument.

Right up there with "cars kill, just like guns, so why not outlaw cars?"; overlooking the fact, of course, that cars are manufactured as transportation, whereas guns are manufactured for killing.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Um, Aristus, fructose is a molecule that comes from corn.

It's the same molecule that's in fruit.

It's the same molecule that "humans" have been digesting for a million years, and life on earth for billions.

It's people like you that make the old "dihydrogen monoxide" joke still funny after all these years.

[localroger]

37. It's what it's in combination with

HFCS is actually very similar to honey, but no human civilization has ever based so much of its diet on honey as we do on HFCS. Potential dangers include breakdown toxins, as this article points out, and lack of nutrients that naturally occur in association but aren't there in the artificial product; corn itself is quite toxic if it's a dietary staple (causing pellagra, chronic niacin deficiency) unless it is treated with lime or lye or augmented with an additive to make its niacin usable to human metabolism. Fructose is actually scary shit; it's not naturally as sweet as alternatives, so you need more of it, and there are very few natural sources comparable to the HFCS that has become such a huge part of the modern American diet.

[Ian David]

10. The article says heating fructose creates toxic chemicals. It's a fair question. Geesh. n/t

[XemaSab]

36. You grill your fruit?

:shrug:

[CountAllVotes]

3. high fructose corn syrup kills

I know this. I was turning into a diabetic and no, I am not overweight but I was consuming high fructose corn syrup unknowingly. It was in the Coffee Mate I was drinking and I then began to read labels.

I found it to be in just about everything from Yoplait yogurts to Kellogg's corn flakes and even salt crackers! When I was in the hospital, all of the foods they were giving me were often packaged and all of them had high fructose corn syrup in them! I complained about this and they acted as if I was insane for refusing to consume this crap. :grr:

I quit consuming it completely and now have a blood sugar of 95 and am no longer considered "pre-diabetic".

If this crap is killing humans you just know it is killing every other living thing out there, including the bees! :mad:

:dem: :kick: & recommend.

[happy_liberal]

6. awesome that you figured it out!

That stuff is in everything, salty foods included...it's as if they are trying to kill us.

I just feel so bad for the people that are too busy to read the latest news and know the many ways they are being poisoned by our food supply and big pharma.

Oh how a wish we had a federal agency in charge of making sure our food supply is safe...

[backscatter712]

25. Haven't been able to eliminate it from my diet completely, but have cut back on it.

It's nearly impossible to eliminate it completely, but I can cut back on it. When I buy bread, I look at the labels - I tent to eat Orowheat because that's the brand that doesn't use HFCS. I've taken to stocking my fridge with Mexican Coke, Pepsi Throwback and the like, because they have real sugar.

I haven't eliminated HFCS from everything, but I've cut back on my consumption significantly, and yes, it does impact me noticeably on my weight & such.

[SPedigrees]

12. This poison certainly causes weight gain.

My husband and I both stopped buying any food or drink that contain this substance, reading every label, about 8 mos ago. We have both lost approx 30 lbs each. I stress that we made NO other dietary changes or change to our moderate daily exercise. We simply substituted sugar for HFCS.

We started to put on those additional 30 lbs in the late 1980s, precisely the timeline when sugar was replaced by this toxin in much of America's food supply.

It does not surprise me at all that it's also toxic to bees, poor things. Glad to hear you also have benefited healthwise from cutting HFCS out of your diet. I think we are seeing the beginning of a backlash against this evil substance, and I hope so.

[happy_liberal]

14. 30lbs in 8 months just by dropping HFCS- Wow- impressive!

I think that is one of the many things messing up our systems. Not only is HFCS toxic, it is GM corn which was found to cause organ damage in rats.

You could help a lot of people by telling your story, keep it up :applause:

[CountAllVotes]

18. how odd

since I dumped it from my diet I've lost about 20 lbs. too!

I made no other changes to my diet but I have cut down on sugar in general.

I love candy is my problem, especially dark chocolate! :D

Congratulations of the simple weight loss effort.

Everyone needs to stay away from this poison!

:kick:

[SPedigrees]

23. Congrats on the weight loss.

However if I were you, I would not deny myself the candy that you like. I'd just make certain that it is sweetened with sugar. We eat just as many sweets as before and still we lost the pounds, so it can only have been the HFCS.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. HFCS: 55% fructose, 45% glucose.

Honey: The same.

[conscious evolution]

15. Eat all that shit you want

But don't come crying to us when you find your health destroyed by it.

[happy_liberal]

16. I wonder if it affects the mind as well

we might already be seeing the results

[SPedigrees]

24. That would account for the voters who put Bushco into office!

It mentally disorients the bees suffering from colony collapse syndrome.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Honey, or HFCS?

Are you avoiding both?

[conscious evolution]

35. The honey I eat

comes from the hives in my backyard.Not from a chemical factory.
And no,they are not the same.

[cascadiance]

42. And the problem is that you system keeps "wanting" too much more than you should have!

Since it is more addictive than regular sugar and your system doesn't tell you when to quit when consuming products with HFCS instead of sugar.

[Bryn]

19. Just like BP telling us it's just a little bit of oil in the ocean ...

I already know HFCS is bad for me. I stopped using it and feel a lot better for it. It's a poison. It's not natural but a man-made chemical that our bodies can't break it down like cane sugar.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

Just like Darwinists telling us the world is more than 6,000 years old.

I already know God created man in his present form. The Bible told me so.

Fossils are a trick by the Devil.

[Leftist Agitator]

32. Um, no.

This is the typical composition of honey:

* Fructose: 38.2%
* Glucose: 31.3%
* Sucrose: 1.3%
* Maltose: 7.1%
* Water: 17.2%
* Higher sugars: 1.5%
* Ash: 0.2%
* Other/undetermined: 3.2%


So are you a paid shill for the Corn Refiners Association, or are you just a useful idiot?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Sampe proportional concentration as HFCS.

Are you a paid shill for the Texas text book industry, or are you just an amateur promoter of scientific illiteracy?

[Leftist Agitator]

38. Let's try this again...

* Fructose: 38.2%
* Glucose: 31.3%


* Sucrose: 1.3%
* Maltose: 7.1%
* Water: 17.2%
* Higher sugars: 1.5%
* Ash: 0.2%
* Other/undetermined: 3.2%


Does HFCS 55 have sucrose, or maltose? No. Does honey? Yes.

Therefore, HFCS =/= to honey.

Your snark isn't fooling anyone. You either have an economic interest in HFCS, or your'e just an asshole.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

39. So what you're saying is....

that small and insignificant amount of maltose ameliorates the dangerous, toxic, voodoo effects of fructose?

Because you do know that maltose is broken down into two molecules of glucose, right? And sucrose breaks down to 50% glucose, and 50% fructose. So when you're eating honey, you're effectively getting 55% fructose, 45% glucose. Not counting the water, which is also in HFCS. And not counting trace other crap like ash.

"Your snark isn't fooling anyone. You either have an economic interest in HFCS, or your'e just an asshole."

I have a scientific interest in basic chemistry. Shame the same can't be said of you.

[Warpy]

5. Interesting that levels jumped at 120F

I'm wondering what those substances do to us in things like baked and canned goods that are heated to two or three times that temperature.

Given the ubiquity of HFCS in processed foods of all descriptions, it's a line of research that needs to be pursued.

Beekeepers need to make the switch now, though.

[happy_liberal]

7. yes

Then they put your nice overheated high fructose corn syrup in a BPA lined can.

[ixion]

11. In the opening scene of King Corn

The two principals go to a lab and have snips of their hair analyzed.

Like most people, they are mostly made of corn, delivered via HFCS.

The movie convinced me to stop consuming this poison.

[MrsCorleone]

28. This is a fantastic film! I've been wanting to see their followup flick, Big River

I believe the filmmakers investigate health & other disasters caused by corn crop herbicide & chemical run off down river. Should be interesting.

[KamaAina]

13. I shouldn't be surprised, but yet I am

The image I had of bees daintily sipping nectar, you know, from flowers 'n' stuff, is apparently as obsolete as 19th-century cattle drives on the Great Plains. But are we the better for it? :eyes:

[happy_liberal]

21. well actually, the bees still daintily sip nectar to create honey

but then we take it and replace it with HFCS to get them through the winter. They could just switch back to cane sugar water but it is more expensive.

Just as an aside, we have a cattle drive go past our house on the road every year, just happened last weekend. I love it, man those tiny cows are so damn cute!

[SPedigrees]

22. Bees do gather nectar from flowers to use in honey production.

Beekeepers traditionally fed their bees sugar water to supplement supplies of honey before flowers bloom. Now apparently Monsanto has been peddling their HFCS to beekeepers, alleging it is a reasonable facsimile for sugar but at a discount price. And this is where trusting in "big corn" in order to save a buck got the beekeeping community: colony collapse.

[Bryn]

20. K&R

Kick

[MrsCorleone]

26. Interesting.

I had always thought that bt toxin was the culprit. I wonder what has been killing the butterflies?

[Sebastian Doyle]

27. How would you vaccinate a bee anyway?

It would be a pain in the ass trying to stick a needle in those little guys.

[ixion]

29. ...

:rofl:

Nice image. :)

[lonestarnot]

40. good question, probably

force feed them :shrug:

[mistertrickster]

30. I've seen thousands of bees feasting on soda pop left in aluminum cans at a recycling center.

This may be dangerous to bees even if it is not deliberately fed to them.

[earth mom]

31. HFCS made lab rats fat while other rats not given it were not fat.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7989817#7998848

If the general population knew that it made lab rats fat, HFCS would be shit canned from every product on the market in a nano second.

HFCS is poisoning the bees and us! :grr:

[glinda]

34. Been here in farm pesticide country for three years, saw zero bees. Third year on my natural

indigenous flowers and plants gardens and I saw a big honkin' bumble and a couple others today! Finally! Took three years!

[trotsky]

41. Just one small problem...

CCD is also very common in Europe, where HFCS is used far less than the USA - and in some countries, not at all.

Oh, two small problems: colonies in the US *not* fed HFCS have also suffered from CCD.

So while this could certainly be a factor in hurting bee colonies, it is unlikely to be "the" culprit, as much as a lot of people really, REALLY think HFCS is the devil's brew.