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TOPIC:
"Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Making You Fat?"
There is increasing concern these days that the high number of beverage and food products containing high fructose corn syrup is a major culprit in the world wide obesity crisis.
North America eats many more products sweetened with high fructose corn syrup than those sweetened with natural sugar cane or beets.
High fructose corn syrup can be found in virtually everything, from your cereal box to frozen and baked goods to the ketchup your kids put on that hot dog.
The first place this fat creating, empty calorie culprit appeared in quantity was in the soft drink and other large industries in the early 1980’s, just about the time the obesity rate started it’s steep incline.
For instance, did you know that a single 12-ounce can of soda contains as much as 13 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup?
Why do the large-scale food manufacturers love high fructose corn syrup? Firstly, because it’s 20% cheaper than other sources of sugar, plus it mixes easily and it extends shelf life. As well, another reason you’ll find high fructose corn syrup in frozen food products is because it prevents freezer burn.
You’ll also find high fructose corn syrup in large amounts in breads, buns and English muffins to help keep them soft and to assist in the browning process when toasting.
And the all pervasive presence of high fructose corn syrup doesn’t stop there, either. It has crept into products you might not ever suspect, such as that supposedly healthy Splash™ or Sobe™ drink or the 10 teaspoons in one serving of your low-fat yogurt or the energy bar in your health food store.
It’s actually quite a challenge to find products that don’t have high fructose corn syrup in them. When you start
reading labels, you’ll find that even the ones that say they’re healthy contain it.
And it’s not even that fructose itself is so bad, it’s just that manufacturers have gone crazy with it and put it in so many foods that the average person is consuming way too much of it without even knowing.
For instance, the amount of soft drinks the nation consumes has more than doubled since 1970 to about 56 gallons per person. This consumption of sodas is in itself an unhealthy choice, but what’s worse is that because of the increase in soda sales, high fructose corn syrup consumption is also greatly increased. According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 2001 the average person consumed almost 63 pounds of it.
However, the problem goes far beyond consuming huge amounts of sugar in your diet because the body processes high fructose corn syrup quite differently from cane or beet sugar. This altering of the way metabolic-regulating hormones function
forces the liver to dump more fat out into the bloodstream and results in our bodies being tricked into not only eating more and more but also storing more fat.
Where does high fructose corn syrup come from? As the name implies, back in the 1970’s Japanese researchers discovered a way to turn corn starch into syrup that was sweet enough to compete with liquid sugar and cheap enough to make most soft drink companies switch from liquid sugar to high fructose corn syrup by the 1980’s.
Once manufacturers had a cheaper way to sweeten foods, they increased the size and amounts of sweet snacks and drinks and increased profits markedly. Unfortunately, they also increased the size of the Nation’s waistline at the same time.
Unlike other types of carbohydrates made up of glucose, diabetics use fructose because it doesn’t stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin, so their blood sugar levels can remain stable.
Eating foods and beverages containing high fructose corn syrup then means that if the pancreas is not stimulated to produce insulin, then there is also a failure in the body to increase the production of leptin, which is a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells.
Why is this a bad thing? Because both insulin and leptin send direct signals to the brain to turn down the appetite and control body weight.
As well, research has begun to show that fructose fails to suppress the production of another hormone called ghrelin, that increases hunger and appetite, therefore by consuming foods containing high fructose corn syrup, your body is sending signals to your brain that you’re always hungry.
So guess what? Consuming a diet containing large amounts of high fructose corn syrup means that the hormones that regulate body weight are no longer activated as they are when you eat other types of carbohydrates containing glucose. The obvious outcome being that over time you gain weight.
Is it just mere coincidence that the once relatively stable obesity rates began to climb markedly in the 1980’s, just after high fructose corn syrup was introduced into the marketplace, doubling in a mere 20 years? I think not.
When teenagers forsake drinking milk for the sweeter taste of sodas, increasing soda consumption by more than 200% between 1965 and 1996, nutritionists agree that the 36% decline in calcium intake which can help regulate body weight, was a definite contributor to much fatter kids.
Researchers argue that the overwhelmingly huge increase in soda consumption, which relates to a huge increase in high fructose corn syrup, is the cause of the most significant rise in obesity.
Another concern is how fructose acts in the liver where it is converted into the most damaging form of cholesterol creating an increased risk of heart disease.
As well, research suggests that the magnesium balance in your body may be altered by consuming fructose laden products and that this could accelerate bone loss.
A review published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that the consumption of large quantities of fructose can induce insulin resistance, impair glucose tolerance, produce high levels of insulin and boost the dangerous type of fat in the blood causing high blood pressure.
It seems that every time we “smart” humans find a way to produce something unnatural, but hey it’s cheaper to produce and our profit margins sure do love
it...that we suffer the consequences somewhere down the road.
So, think about what you’re putting into your body and really start reading the labels. If you just cut out all products containing high fructose corn syrup you’d be doing yourself and your family a long life
favor.
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