High Fructose Corn Syrup is Making you Fat

Yale Scientists confirm HFCS’ role in the obesity epidemic.
I came across an interesting new study published January 1 in the Journal of the American Medical Association that confirms something I’ve been writing about for years:  high-fructose corn syrup’s major contribution to the obesity epidemic.
As I wrote in my book Get the Sugar Out, when high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) became commonplace in the late 1970s, obesity levels began to soar and have only skyrocketed since –over 73% of Americans are overweight today.  A cheap, manmade supersweet alternative to table sugar, HFCS is in almost everything at the supermarket– start reading labels and you’ll even find it in ketchup, salad dressing, and canned soup.
While sucrose (table sugar) contains both fructose and glucose, HFCS is formed by adding specific enzymes to corn syrup in order to turn the high-glucose corn syrup into a 90% fructose product. Then glucose is blended back in to get the desired glucose-fructose blend – usually 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Many filtration, ion exchange, and evaporation steps, plus carbon absorption (for removing impurities) are part of the process. The end result is a refined product that our bodies were not designed to consume – especially at high levels!
So how does HFCS affect our bodies differently than table sugar?
Fructose and glucose look similar molecularly, but fructose is metabolized differently by the body. While every cell in your body can metabolize glucose, the liver must metabolize fructose, so important appetite controls are bypassed. Unlike glucose, the fructose in HFCS is quickly absorbed into your cells without the help of insulin, and without the subsequent increase in leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite by signaling to your brain that you are full. In addition, the insulin produced during glucose metabolism suppresses a hormone called ghrelin produced by the stomach to regulate food uptake; this action is missing with fructose metabolism, so you stay hungry and keep eating.
And, the Yale Study confirms this theory. Researchers tested 20 healthy adults to better understand the affects of fructose on the brain. While the test subjects consumed both fructose and glucose sweetened drinks, the scientists used fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to measure hypothalamic activity which helps regulate many of the brain’s hunger-related signals. While glucose lowered the activity of the hypothalamus to reduce hunger, fructose prompted a spike to the area which only increases the sensation.
While I’ve been blowing the whistle on America’s sugar addiction for years, I’m relieved that high-fructose corn syrup is finally being recognized as the villain it really is. As more research is conducted, the dangers of excessive sugar consumption will continue to be at the forefront of nutrition. As Jonathan Purnell and Damien Fair from the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Sciences University recently noted, sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are “indeed extending the supersizing concept to the population’s collective waistlines.”
To learn more about how to get the sugar out of your diet, check out my book, the aptly named, Get the Sugar Out: 501 Simple Ways to Cut the Sugar Out of Any Diet.
-Edge on Health, Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman