More bad news about High Fructose Corn Syrup....

Today's post: Monday, 9-22-2008

In our last post on Thursday, last week, we posted about several reasons that high fructose corn syrup is indeed bad for you.

Then, last Saturday, I got an article in my Early to Rise email that absolutely nails down that no one who wants to stay healthy should ingest high fructose corn syrup.

This information suggests that ingesting high fructose corn syrup, particularly in the quantities now common to most the food and drink of most people in the United States may quite literally be as bad for the health of your heart as eating way too many transfats.

Ouch !!

Transfats are now rapidly being banned because studies found ingesting them causes an increase in the kind of small particle LDL that quite literally is small enough it sticks in the chinks in the walls of your blood vessels -- & which is one of the main causes of heart disease –AND erectile dysfunction caused by vascular problems, AND peripheral artery disease, AND strokes, AND is one of the causes of high blood pressure, etc.

If James LaValle’s article that I read Saturday is correct in its facts, SO DOES ingesting high fructose corn syrup, particularly in the large amounts you may well have been taking in for years without realizing it.

Imagine something that both dramatically increases the amount of the small particle LDL that quite literally is small enough it sticks in the chinks in the walls of your blood vessels in your blood most days of the week AND increases your blood pressure to insure it gets driven into your artery walls.

Research shows that reliably produces heart attacks and all the other effects of cardiovascular disease. Now imagine that the majority of the people in the United States have been quite literally ingesting POUNDS of this stuff every month for many years. That would predict a lot of medical costs caused by the effects of this that need not have happened and need not continue to happen to YOU.

There are 3 blood indicators that measure how much of this kind of small particle LDL is in your blood vessels. The total LDL approximates it since having less of it makes it likely you also have less of the small particle LDL. But the ratio that almost measures it exactly is the ratio of HDL to triglycerides. Regular exercise tends to both increase HDL and lower triglycerides. That’s why it tends to prevent heart disease. It’s almost like it’s a drug to lower the amount of small particle LDL in your blood.

But guess what happens if your HDL stays the same & something sharply drives up the amount of triglycerides in your blood? We now know it’s virtually certain that means you will also have more small particle LDL in your blood vessels.

That’s what transfats do & what is getting them banned. Apparently ingesting high fructose corn syrup does the same thing.

Bottom line, read all food and drink labels and stop buying and/or ingesting things that contain any high fructose corn syrup if you want to stay healthy.

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.”

“Fruit Juice - Bad for Your Heart?

James B. LaValle

If you’re worried about the effects of fat and dietary cholesterol on your heart, stop. Trans-fats are the only ones conclusively proven to be detrimental. In the meantime, there’s something just as serious to watch out for. Fructose.

The average American is getting more fructose than ever before. A study in the July 9 Medscape Journal of Medicine found that, on average, our intake of fructose increased from about 35 grams (a little over 1 ounce) per day in the late 1970s to about 55 grams (almost 2 ounces) per day now. That may not sound like much, but 2 ounces of fructose per day is almost 46 pounds a year!

That’s serious news, because fructose has a rap sheet about a mile long:

1. It increases the risk of high LDL cholesterol - which increases the risk of heart attack threefold.

2. It increases triglycerides in the blood, a strong predictor of heart disease.

3. It increases uric acid in the blood, which causes gout and increases blood pressure.

4. It stimulates appetite by affecting leptin (a hunger-suppressing hormone) and ghrelin (a hunger-stimulating hormone.)

5. It decreases adiponectin, a hormone that improves insulin sensitivity in cells.

Where are we getting all that fructose? Well, it occurs naturally in fruits and other foods, like table sugar and honey. But the popular processed sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the main culprit.

So check the labels. And avoid foods with HFCS. These include soft drinks, fruit juice drinks, fruit rolls/fruit chew-type snacks, sweetened teas, fruit smoothies, and ketchup. And limit your intake of anything with high amounts of natural fructose - like fruit juices - as well.

[Ed. Note: It truly is possible to improve your health just by making a few simple changes to your diet and lifestyle. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies - can give you easy-to-understand directions for living the healthy life you've always wanted…..]”

X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

(James LaValle writes health articles for both Early to Rise – AND for its health focused publication, Total Health Breakthroughs.)

So, to repeat, if ingesting high fructose corn syrup has these effects, it is certain that it also produces heart disease and may well do so as much or more than ingesting transfats.

In fact, high fructose corn syrup may be even more effective in causing heart disease than transfats.

Look back and re-read his points 4. & 5. It seems that ingesting high fructose corn syrup makes you hungrier instead of less hungry after you take in the calories in the food or drink containing it. (Point 4.)

And, it tends to make your cells less sensitive to insulin. (Point 5.)

Guess what happens when you do both? You tend to get fat. And, by becoming fatter AND making the cells in your body insulin resistant, you tend to cause type II diabetes.

Oops !!

Men who have both cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes are twice as likely to have heart attacks as those without the type II diabetes. And, women who have both cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes are FOUR times as likely to have heart attacks as those without the type II diabetes.

So, if his facts are correct, high fructose corn syrup is WORSE than transfats. It causes heart attacks and other cardiovascular disease in TWO ways. Transfats only do it in one way.

(By the way, drinking a single glass a day of real fruit juice, or even two for people who exercise and are not over fat, both has significant health benefits, including helping to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and helping to prevent or reduce high blood pressure. And, somehow the micronutrients in real juices prevent the fructose in the juice from having the same effects as high fructose corn syrup. But drinking more juice than that or drinking juice with extra high fructose corn syrup added overrides this protection.)