EVERY time Marie Cabrera goes shopping, she brings along her mental checklist of things to avoid. It includes products with artery-clogging trans fats, cholesterol-inducing saturated fats, MSG and the bogeyman du jour, high-fructose corn syrup.In the news media and on myriad Web sites, high-fructose corn syrup has been labeled "the Devil's candy," a "sinister invention," "the crack of sweeteners" and "crud." Many scientific articles and news reports have noted that since 1980, obesity rates have climbed at a rate remarkably similar to that of high-fructose corn syrup consumption.
"There's no substantial evidence to support the idea that high-fructose corn syrup is somehow responsible for obesity," said Dr. Walter Willett, the chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health and a prominent proponent of healthy diets. "If there was no high-fructose corn syrup, I don't think we would see a change in anything important. I think there's this overreaction." .... Dr. Willett says that he is not defending high-fructose corn syrup as a healthy ingredient, but that he simply thinks that the product is no worse than the refined white sugar it replaces, since both offer easily consumed calories with no nutrients in them.
Even the two scientists who first propagated the idea of a unique link between high-fructose corn syrup and America's soaring obesity rates have gently backed off from their initial theories. Barry M. Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says that a widely read paper on the subject that he wrote in 2004 with George A. Bray, a professor of medicine at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., was just meant to be a "suggestion" that would inspire further study.
Studies have shown that the human body metabolizes fructose, the sweetest of the natural sugars, in a way that may promote weight gain. Specifically, fructose does not prompt the production of certain hormones that help regulate appetite and fat storage, and it produces elevated levels of triglycerides that researchers have linked to an increased risk of heart disease.
But the name "high-fructose corn syrup" is something of a misnomer. It is high only in relation to regular corn syrup, not to sugar. The version of high-fructose corn syrup used in sodas and other sweetened drinks consists of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, very similar to white sugar, which is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. The form of high-fructose corn syrup used in other products like breads, jams and yogurt -- 42 percent fructose and 58 percent glucose -- is actually lower in fructose than white sugar.
Starting in 1980, around the time that manufacturers started replacing sugar in sodas with a more cheaply produced sweetener -- high-fructose corn syrup -- there was a sharp increase in male and female obesity in the United States. From 1980 to 2000, the incidence of obesity doubled, after having remained relatively flat for the preceding 20 years, the data showed. Could high-fructose corn syrup be making us fat, Professor Bray wondered?
Around the same time (2004), a breezy and provocative book about America's obesity problem, "Fat Land" by Greg Critser, generated more awareness of high-fructose corn syrup. Mr. Critser proposed that the syrup made consumers fat because it was so cheap, and thus food makers could afford to offer more products with it and more copious portions.
There is little question that after beverage companies began adding high-fructose corn syrup into soda in the early 1980's, soft-drink consumption soared. From 1980 to 2000, per-person consumption of sweetened soda rose by 40 percent, to 440 12-ounce cans a year, according to the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service.
This is a well-researched article and it convinced me that HFCS is no worse than sugar. HFCS contains no more fructose than white sugar and the correlation between HFCS and obesity is explained by the shocking growth of soft drink consumption since 1980; and 440 cans/year per-person is truly shocking.
I personally think that natural foods are better for you than processed foods, but I also think that rap against HFCS is unscientific hysteria. If you don't want to get fat, start by ending your consumption of soft drinks containing fructose/glucose, whether they are sweetened with sugar or HFCS. Feel better? Good!
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