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

- Me, PhD

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.

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.

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.

“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.