The Battle Against HFCS

I'm going to try to present fact/research based information on High Fructose Corn Syrup in this post, followed by my personal feelings and frustrations in another post - although you can probably tell from the title how I feel about it, so this will probably come off biased.

For those who may not know what it is, "High-fructose corn syrup is a sweetener and preservative used in many processed foods. It is made by changing the sugar in cornstarch to fructose — another form of sugar." (1) "HFCS is a sweetener found in many foods and beverages, including non-diet soda pop, baked goods, and condiments. It is has become the sweetener of choice for many food manufacturers because it is considered more economical, sweeter and more easy to blend into beverages than table sugar." (2)

"High-fructose corn syrup is any of a group of corn syrups which have undergone enzymatic processing in order to increase their fructose content and are then mixed with pure corn syrup (100% glucose) to reach their final form. The typical types of HFCS are: HFCS 90 (used almost exclusively in the production of HFCS 55) which is approximately 90% fructose and 10% glucose; HFCS 55 (most commonly used in soft drinks) which is approximately 55% fructose and 45% glucose; and HFCS 42 (used in a variety of other foods, including baked goods) which is approximately 42% fructose and 58% glucose. Further, the fructose and glucose in HFCS are in the form of separate molecules; by contrast, the fructose and glucose that are contained in sucrose are joined together to form a single molecule (called a disaccharide). " (3)

Based on definition, it sounds harmless enough. However, "Some nutrition experts blame increased consumption of high-fructose corn syrup for the growing obesity problem. One theory is that fructose is more readily converted to fat by your liver than is sucrose, increasing the levels of fat in your bloodstream. But this hasn't been proven." (1) In addition, "There is a correlation between the rise of obesity in the U.S. and the use of HFCS for sweetening beverages and foods. The controversy largely comes down to whether this is coincidence or a causal relationship. Some critics of HFCS do not claim that it is any worse than similar quantities of sucrose would be, but rather focus on its prominent role in the overconsumption of sugar; for example, encouraging overconsumption through its low cost." (3)

This graph shows US sweetener consumption, 1966-2004. It disputes the claim that overall sugar consumption alone is responsible for the rise in obesity and other health effects, suggesting that HFCS itself may be one of the biggest factors. "It is apparent from this graph that overall sweetener consumption, and in particular glucose-fructose mixtures, has increased since the introduction of HFCS. Thus, the amount of fructose consumed in the United States & Canada has increased since the early 1980s. This would be true whether the added sweetener was HFCS, table sugar, or any other glucose-fructose mixture. However, because HFCS has slightly more fructose than does table sugar, the proportion of fructose as a component of overall sweetener intake in the United States has also increased, which would not be true if the increase in overall intake was table sugar." (3)

Besides obesity, there are other health problems that are theorized to be linked to HFCS. "Some researchers have suggested that high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to an increased risk of diabetes... Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found 'astonishingly high' levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with "unbound" fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are "bound" and chemically stable, the researcher notes.

Reactive carbonyls also are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes and linked to the complications of that disease. Based on the study data, Ho estimates that a single can of soda contains about five times the concentration of reactive carbonyls than the concentration found in the blood of an adult person with diabetes. "(2)

"Peter Havel of UC Davis presented a study at an Endocrine Society meeting last month in which he followed 33 overweight and obese adults as they dieted for 12 weeks. During the last 10 weeks, half of them got 25% of their calories from fructose, and half got 25% from glucose. Though both groups gained the same amount of weight -- 3.3 pounds -- those who had the fructose had an increase in the least-desirable fat (the kind that wraps around internal organs, causes a pot belly and is linked to higher risk of diabetes and heart disease) while the others did not." (4)

By contrast, "An expert panel, led by Richard Forshee, Ph.D. of the University of Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition and Agriculture Policy, concluded that 'the currently available evidence is insufficient to implicate HFCS per se as a causal factor in the overweight and obesity problem in the United States.' The panel’s report was published in the August 2007 issue of Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition" (5)

(1) Mayo Clinic
(2) Science Daily
(3) Wikipedia
(4) LA Times
(5) HFCSFacts.com