Even more bad news about high fructose corn syrup....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-3-2012

Given the bad news already out about high fructose corn syrup, it’s hard to imagine more. 

There’s a new bit of news about high fructose corn syrup that is important for understanding why high fructose corn syrup tests as extra fattening and extra harmful.

We already know that eating too much sugar and other high glycemic foods is fattening and tends to increase triglycerides a lot and lower amount of the protective HDL cholesterol and that this combination causes or indicates an increase in the small particle LDL that causes heart disease.

Such foods also cause a big boost in blood sugar followed by a drop to cause mood swings and the extra eating and cravings that cause fat gain or prevent fat loss.  Worse, they cause insulin surges that are directly fattening.  Plus if you keep doing it, you get insulin resistance and always too high blood sugar and the damage caused by type 2 diabetes when this goes on too long.  (There is some evidence that when this goes on in your brain, it’s a cause of Alzheimer’s disease.)

So for high fructose corn syrup to taste sweeter and as a liquid be easier to add to foods than powdered sugar and cheap makes it easier to make and sell foods containing high fructose corn syrup and make a lot of money at it.

Worse, most of the foods that high fructose corn syrup is added to are usually made with other health damaging ingredients such as refined grains and cheap oils high in omega 6 and worst of all, hydrogenated cheap oils. 

And that’s just part one.  Part 2 is that by actual test, 30 % of all foods and drinks containing high fructose corn syrup also contain the neurotoxin mercury.  That’s true for both foods and drinks because one of the main ways to make high fructose corn syrup adds the mercury during processing.  

(Mercury causes nerve damage.  And, if you have the genes that cause you to clear mercury badly or eat it in other foods too or eat too few of the high fiber foods that help take it out of your body, it’s a known cause of mental decline – both Alzheimer’s and other kinds of damage driven dementias.)

It seems there is also a part 3!

 I got the new and even worse information in an email newsletter from Dr David J. Blyweiss.

(HFCS is an abbreviation for high fructose corn syrup.)

“Unbound:

In cane sugar, the fructose and glucose molecules are bound to one another in a 1:1 ratio. This means your body has to break them down before they can be absorbed.

But in HFCS, the fructose molecules are unbound during processing. So it's instantly absorbed into the bloodstream upon ingestion.

Your body was simply not meant to ingest fructose in this way, and it isn't prepared for the heavy load. Nature makes sugar harder to come by for a reason. When you eat fruits and vegetables, for example, the fructose is bound up with fiber and vitamins and minerals. So it never gets a heavy load of unprocessed fructose it can't handle.

This overload is a driving force behind fatty livers and the diabetes epidemic we're facing, since high levels of fructose throw off the body's insulin production.

It's also at least partially responsible for the obesity problem we're facing. Fructose slows down your secretion of leptin, the appetite hormone that tells you to stop eating when you've had enough.”

In plain language, when high fructose corn syrup is made, the unbinding makes it more blood sugar boosting and fattening than regular sugar even if the amount is about the same.

For fattening effects this means that not only does high fructose corn syrup cause a fiercer and quicker rebound hunger than sugar, foods containing high fructose corn syrup reduce your hunger less than the same food would if it had that much sugar instead.

The fact that the high fructose corn syrup used in most foods only has a bit more fructose than real sugar is true but is a smoke screen because of this effect of unbinding the fructose from the glucose.  High fructose corn syrup does cause more bad health effects and extra fat on your body than sugar even when the amount of fructose is equal!

Conclusion:

If you want to stay healthy, this means there are several things you can do.

1.  ALWAYS read labels; and if it has high fructose corn syrup listed as an ingredient don’t buy or eat it – or drink it. 

You may lose some favorite foods that way unfortunately. 

I used to like a Boysenberry syrup and a seedless raspberry jam when I did indulge in syrup or jam.  Had they contained sugar, they would have been almost as tasty and given me less heart burn if I ate a bit extra.  But so far they don’t make them without high fructose corn syrup. 

I also love chocolate and often bought a chocolate syrup that was sweet and smooth and quite chocolate-y.  Read the label a few months ago. Ooops!  No sugar listed; but high fructose corn syrup only was on the label. 

I’m working to eat less real sugar.  But I went from occasionally getting these foods to never when I discovered they contained high fructose corn syrup.

The other reason is that foods that would have been good with just regular sugar and foods that once had no kind of sugar at all now often have high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient.  If you don’t always read the label, you might well miss that they contain high fructose corn syrup.

I used to love Ketchup until I found that it contained high fructose corn syrup.  I’ve even heard of high fructose corn syrup being added to bread – not that bread is a low glycemic and health desirable food since most breads are also made with refined grain only and even 100 % whole grain bread tends to be high glycemic.

2.  Buy and eat or drink far fewer or none of the regular soft drinks, packaged snacks, packaged desserts, and commercial baked goods that often contain high fructose corn syrup.  (That way you also avoid things that contain high fructose corn syrup even when there is no label.  You also avoid the fattening and bad health effects of the other ingredients in these foods and drinks.)

3.  If we begin to see taxes of foods that fatten and cause chronic diseases and avoidable suffering and high medical costs, support them.  And, give extra support to taxing any use of high fructose corn syrup!