Part 2: How HFCS Super-Sized Us

A number of studies have shown that when we drink our calories (as opposed to eat them), our brains will process information differently. Unlike solid food, liquid calories don’t satisfy hunger because they don’t suppress a hunger hormone called ghrelin which tells us to eat more. In an analysis of the eight-year Nurses’ Health Study II, it was shown that women who upped their caloric soft drink consumption from one soda per week to one or more per day gained weight and had a higher risk of type II diabetes.¹

Sodas are unquestionably linked to obesity, both the adult kind and the childhood kind. Research conducted in 2001 by David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital in Boston found that the odds of a teenager becoming obese increased a whopping 60% for each can or glass of sugar-sweetened soft drinks.²

Which brings us back to HFCS. “The low cost of high fructose corn syrup allowed the explosion of 20-oz sodas, Super Big Gulps and the like to happen,” C. Leigh Broadhurst, PhD, a research scientist and nutritionist at the USDA told me.

“Because sucrose was quite expensive, for years sodas were limited to the 12-oz can. We have also had an explosion of candies, bakery items, and ice cream novelties which would have been just too costly if they were all made with sugar. But now because of high fructose corn syrup, they are much cheaper to produce.”

So let’s review. We have a metabolically damaging simple sugar (fructose) which we now consume in record quantities due to how cheaply and easily HFCS can be manufactured. And we have Americans getting somewhere between 10-20% of their daily calories from this stuff. This is hardly good news.

You may remember from Part 1 of this article that HFCS is slightly higher in fructose than regular sugar (55/45 vs. 50/50). You’d think this wouldn’t make much of a difference, and it probably doesn’t — if you’re taking in only a few grams of sugar a day. But consider that there are folks out there drinking 12 cans of soda daily. That extra 5% of fructose can easily add up to an additional 20-30 grams of fructose, no small matter when you consider the metabolic damage it can do to the body.

So is regular sugar any better? Not much. “The rush to put “cane syrup” back into processed foods in lieu of HFCS does not make then any healthier”, Dr. Broadhurst told me. “Any refined sugar is to fruit as distilled liquor is to grain. It’s to be used with discretion and not fed to kids.”

References

1. http://nutrition.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=nutrition&cdn=health&tm=3&f=00&su=p284.9.336.ip_p674.5.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/292/8/927
2. Ludwig, et al. Lancet, Vol. 357, No. 9255: 505-508

[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology and the author of five books including The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. His latest book is The Most Effective Cures on Earth.For more information, click here.]

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