I think if they study this problem they will see that there is something larger out there than just HFCS. The overuse of corn in general and additives like MSG, I believe, are causing some strange things to happen. One of my son’s and I are both allergic to corn and corn derivitives. I have built a web site http://www.CornAllergySymptoms.com to help others with the same problem, it’s much larger than I had expected!

Wow, I could have told the researchers this months ago, not that it isn’t nice to have some professional confirmation.

Now all that is needed is for the damn U.S. government to stop subsidizing corn so it isn’t so cheap to stuff it in everywhere and to get those exercise simulating pills out the door http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0403/03.html

More incentive to read your food labels. If HFCS is in the first 3 ingredients don’t buy it!

The photo looks like a Cingular (AT&T) 5-bars advertisement from a couple of years ago. HFCS is evil and should be avoided. Buy whole, natural foods and live healthier.

That’s it. I’m only drinking soda sweetened with actual sugar from now on. It tastes better anyway.

The soda industry would love nothing more then to move to cane sugar, they use it all over the world except in America. Why, you ask? Well its actually simple, the Government has regulated competition in the sugar industry to death (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/sc019). To make matters even worse HFCS is over used as a cheap option (mainly because of more government involvement the 2005 US subsidies on Corn was $9,399,338,468 from http://farm.ewg.org). I would love to blame big company’s for this problem but in the end its just good old Uncle Sam.

Great story, I love to see the research actually being done, its about time this issue came to light.

It’s a shame that they don’t speculate at all as to the reason for the differential weight gain. Sucrose and fructose are digested in essentially identical ways (at least in humans), so it’s very strange that there would be such a marked difference. Fructose is sweeter than sucrose–does the study control for amount of sugar taken in by the rats?

Actually, that’s not true. Fructose and sucrose are not digested in identical ways in humans. Fructose is a monosaccharide; sucrose is a disaccharide (1 glucose molecule, 1 fructose molecule). Essentially what this means is that the body has to break sucrose down before it can use it (and thus expend more energy), whereas fructose is already broken down. Eating high concentrations of fructose means that the body has more easy access to sugar-carbohydrates. Ultimately, the body will convert fructose into glucose to feed the brain (primarily) and other parts of the body – but if there’s too much fructose or glucose in the blood, the body converts that instead into fat, since it has no other use for it. The problem is that HFCS is making the body expend less energy to get excess carbohydrate energy from the high levels of fructose – and thus creating more fat because the body just can’t use all of that fructose. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Fructose_digestion_and_absorption_in_humans)
(More about fructose: http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/carbs/1170)

I agree with the article and the comments, but here is something I noticed:

“The research was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service.”

In other words, the government has stolen money from its people to subsidize corn, which makes them unhealthy.

Then they stole some more money, and gave it to a different part of the government to study how the first part is making everyone fat/sick.

Here’s a novel idea, get the government out of the business of picking winners and losers altogether and you wouldn’t need the study in the first place!!!

Economic interventionism racks up another loss in a long, long list of failures!

“The first study showed that male rats given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow gained much more weight than male rats that received water sweetened with table sugar, or sucrose, in conjunction with the standard diet. The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.”

Interesting study, but why did the concentrations differ? Seems like it adds a needless confounder.

“Fructose and sucrose are not digested in identical ways in humans. Fructose is a monosaccharide; sucrose is a disaccharide (1 glucose molecule, 1 fructose molecule). Essentially what this means is that the body has to break sucrose down before it can use it (and thus expend more energy), whereas fructose is already broken down. ”

Actually, from what I can find sucrose is hydrolyzed into glucose and fructose by the enzyme sucrase and water requing no energy input. This results in a 50/50 mix of glucose and fructose in the system. Most high fructose corn syrup is not all fructose by about 45% glucose/55% fructose. Really not all that different. This makes these results quite surprising considering the small difference in what hits the blood stream.

“Interesting study, but why did the concentrations differ? Seems like it adds a needless confounder.”

Can’t read the article yet, but it is likely to be to keep things even actually, not to confound. Sucrose is a disaccharide which is readily cleaved into two sugars. High fructose corn syrup starts as the tw seperate sugars. So by having 1/2 the concentration of sucrose, once it is cleaved you have the same amount of monosaccharides entering the system.

Although one would need to look at the study design, nothing on this page indicates that fructose is the culprit. It could be something else in the corn syrup.

Me Too: The study points the finger directly at fructose and corn syrup, smoking gun and all. Read the research article. The “something else in the corn syrup” is what makes corn syrup, corn syrup — fructose! Trying to argue that it’s something else in the corn syrup making you fat is like trying to say that something else in gasoline makes the car go.

“….the first long-term study of the effects of high-fructose corn syrup consumption on obesity in lab animals..”

After 20 years of adding it to just about everything…

The good news is if they stop making HFCS, they can use all that extra corn to make ethanol fuel…..

from the article…
“…as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.”

Somebody was sleeping the day they taught math in school…

“Animals with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained 48 percent more weight than those eating a normal diet. In humans, this would be equivalent to a 200-pound man gaining 96 pounds.”

No, it’ WOULDN’T be the equivalent. Check your numbers again. An accurate analogy would be two humans of unknown weight; the one with table sugar gaining 50 pounds and the one with HFCS gaining 74 pounds. (Or 100 and 148, or any other equal ratio.)

THIS would match your statement: “Lab rats who ate high-fructose corn syrup gained an average of 48 percent of their original body weight.”

Seriously, guys…you’re making your researchers look bad.

I’m glad a study was finally performed that didn’t compare fructose to glucose, but HFCS to sucrose since this is what we eat. I wonder if the weight gain was not caused by the calories in the HFCS, but in the additional quantity of rat chow consumed. Fructose doesn’t stimulate insulin production which in turn doesn’t stimulate leptin production. Increases in insulin and leptin levels in the blood turn off your hunger sensation. Without this chemical trigger it is easy to over eat. Another reason food producers love to use HFCS; it makes us eat more of the products that contain it.

Fructose is metabolized in the liver where excess is stored for later use. The liver stores this excess sugar as triglycerides which contributes to NAFLD.

it sure tastes good…. =]

“Fructose doesn’t stimulate insulin production which in turn doesn’t stimulate leptin production. Increases in insulin and leptin levels in the blood turn off your hunger sensation. Without this chemical trigger it is easy to over eat. Another reason food producers love to use HFCS; it makes us eat more of the products that contain it. ”

This is true, but HFCS is not fructose. It is a 55%fructose, 42% glucose, 3% higher sugars according to the article. Sucrose is broken down to a 50/50 mix of fructose and glucose. It would be surprising if a 5% increase in fructose threw the system so completely out of whack; there is still significant glucose to trigger the insulin and leptin respnses. If that is the case, it is equally likely that the 3% higher sugars are having a drastic effect.

“It would be surprising if a 5% increase in fructose threw the system so completely out of whack; there is still significant glucose to trigger the insulin and leptin respnses. If that is the case, it is equally likely that the 3% higher sugars are having a drastic effect.”

If a 5% increase in fructose caused a 5% increase in total calories consumed by inhibiting hunger cessation without an equal increase in activity to burn those calories, the effect on a person with a 2000 calorie per day diet would be a weight increase of 10.4 pounds per year. I think that is significant, even though it translates to only 100 calories per day.

A solution of monosaccharides is not the same as sucrose in any ratio, even 1:1, including HFCS and invert sugar.

After having my first heart attack in October ’07, and being 70 pounds obese, I could not agree more with the hidden dangers of HFCS. I have now lost a ton of weight, am an avid label reader, and am juicing more. I am still shocked however at folks reluctance when I try [desperately] to both educate and arm them with the dangers of this silent killer. My tryclycerides alone were off the chart, and I was ever near to becoming a diabetic. My most blood “numbers” are all now back in the normal range, and I continue to spread the word about the dangers of all the artificial sweeteners….especially HCFS.

Look at today’s kids. They all have spare tires around their hips. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid. High Fructose corn syrup along with partially-hydrogenated soybean oil and a HUGE issue. If I wanted chemicals in my body I’d drink Mr. Clean.

Will believe these results when they’re duplicated in other labs. They don’t make much sense and from the description above, I suspect the researchers didn’t pair-feed the rats. Simply providing them with isocaloric food isn’t the same as ensuring the different groups are consuming the same volumes. It’s most likely that the obese rats simply consumed more HFCS due to taste.

- Me, PhD

In June, 2011, without having done any research, I decided that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) probably was NOT a good thing to be eating, so I decided to make an effort to avoid eating it. I knew that it is the sole sweetener in most soft drinks, so I laid in a supply of Sierra Mist, which is sweetened with natural sugar, and drank that whenever I felt like consuming a soft drink.

I took a bath in June, also, and (once again) bemoaned the mound of abdominal fat that I had been carrying around for decades.

I didn’t diet and I wasn’t weighing myself.

In September, people began saying to me, “Marjorie! You’ve lost weight! You look great!”

I said “Thank you!” in reply and thought how nice it was that my weight (which had gotten quite high: 200 lb. about 2 years ago) was coming back down without my having to do anything to bring it down!

I had been taking showers through the summer and fall, but in October, 2011, I took another bath. That is when I first discovered that the mound of abdominal fat that I had had for decades was GONE!

I’d wanted to get rid of it for so many years, and now my wish had been granted! But WHY had that stubborn abdominal fat vanished? “I must have done SOMETHING that got rid of it”, I mused. “But what?”

Thinking back, I remembered that I had still had that abdominal fat in June. “What have I done in the past 4 months that could possibly be responsible for the loss of my abdominal fat?” I asked myself.

I hadn’t made any effort to lose weight, and I hadn’t changed my level of exercise, and I had not made any effort to modify my diet other than striving to avoid consuming HFCS. So the ONLY thing I had done was to almost eliminate HFCS from my diet!

My effort to drastically reduce the amount of HFCS I was consuming was the only possible explanation for my unexpected weight loss. I’ve now started to research what is known about the metabolism of HFCS, and everything I am learning is consistent with my welcome loss of fat being accounted for by my effort to avoid consuming HFCS.

ANYBODY can do what I did! All that is required is to READ LABELS! (For Coca-Cola addicts, I’ve learned that there is a non-HFCS sugar-sweetened version that is sold at Sam’s Club and at some specialty stores, but NOT in grocery stores, which carry only the Coke sweetened with HFCS. The only sugar-sweetened soft drink I’ve seen for sale in grocery stores is Sierra Mist.)

Marjorie

Wow! good for you marjorie. It means that fructose is really bad for us. I think I should cut down or the worst is to eliminate drinking soda. I’m addicted to soda but If it’s bad to our health i should stop it. I think that’s the reason why I didn’t lose weight even though I always run. I have to fight my temptation. I should listen to this article – http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/02/highfructose-corn-syrup-alters-human-metabolism.aspx.

I’ve lived in Germany twice in my life for a three month period — in Bavaria to be specific. The last time was last year and then ten years before that. Each time, I braced the typical Bavarian diet, lots of wurst, cheese Lebekase, Doner Kebab and other typical Imbiss food. I almost never drink soda here, but there I did regularly. When I was there last time, my chocolate consumption increased greatly, and I found a great cafe with the best cheesecake, and I also discovered Rahmschmankerl, something I would highly recommend. In other words, I became somewhat of a pig. Regardless, the same thing happened to me last year as ten years before that, I lost ten pounds per month, and I came back home thirty pounds lighter. How did I stop dieting and lose weight? I started reading labels there, and I realized that they don’t have high-fructose corn syrup. That was the only clear difference that I could determine in what I was consuming. They do use corn syrup, but not HFCS.