The corn refiners association has recently started advertising that HFCS is healthy for us. The fact is, it’s not. They and others have designed websites to make people think HFCS is good for us. This is pure capitalism without regard for our health.

     We're actually drowning in high fructose corn syrup. It’s in many of our foods and beverages. This country eats more sweetener made from corn than from sugarcane or beets. Almost all nutritionists point to high fructose corn syrup consumption as a major culprit in the nation's obesity crisis. This inexpensive sweetener flooded the American food supply in the early 1980s, just about the time the nation's obesity rate started its unprecedented climb. The process of pulling sugar from cornstarch wasn't perfected until the early 1970s, by Japanese researchers. After some tinkering, they landed on a formula that was 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose.

There are two possible reasons that HFCS makes us fat.

• Either we're eating too many empty calories in ever-increasing portion sizes
• Or fructose in all that corn syrup short-circuits our metabolism and forces us to gain weight.

Loading HFCS into increasingly larger portions of soft drinks and processed foods has packed more calories into us and more money into food processing companies. But some health experts argue that the issue is bigger than mere calories. The theory is: The body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does sugarcane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into our bloodstreams.  

The end result is that our bodies are essentially tricked into wanting to eat more and storing more fat.  Studies by researchers at UC Davis and the University of Michigan have shown that consuming fructose, which is more readily converted to fat by the liver, increases the levels of fat in the bloodstream in the form of triglycerides. And, unlike other types of carbohydrates made up of glucose, fructose does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. These same researchers at UC Davis have also shown that fructose fails to increase the production of leptin which is a hormone produced by the body's fat cells. Both insulin and leptin act as signals to the brain to turn our appetites down and control body weight. And other research shows that fructose doesn’t appear to suppress the production of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger and appetite.

Another issue is the ease with which we can consume this HFCS. It may not be that fructose itself is so bad, but it’s in so many foods that we consume large quantities of it without knowing it. A single 12-ounce can of soda contains as much as 13 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup. The amount of soda we drink has more than doubled since 1970 to about 56 gallons per person a year. In 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we consumed almost 63 pounds of HFCS.

The USDA suggests most of us limit our intake of added sugar to about 10 to 12 teaspoons a day. This should include everything from the high fructose corn syrup to sugar from sugarcane. But, we're not doing so well. In 2000, we ate an average of 31 teaspoons a day, which was more than 15 percent of our calorie intake. And much of that was in sweetened drinks. Even a low-fat, fruit-flavored yogurt, can have 10 teaspoons of fructose-based sweetener per serving.

High fructose corn syrup:

• mixes easily
• extends shelf-life
• and is as much as 20 percent cheaper than other sources of sugar, therefore, large-scale food manufacturers love it.

It can also:

• help prevent freezer burn, so you'll find it on the labels of many frozen foods.
• It helps breads brown and keeps them soft, which is why hot dog buns and even English muffins have large amounts of HFCS.

The question remains just how much more dangerous high fructose corn syrup is than other sugars. Fructose is the sugar found naturally in fruit. It can be extracted, turned into granules and used like sugar in the kitchen. It used to be considered a healthier alternative to sucrose. It's sweeter, so less is needed to achieve the same taste. Diabetics use it because fructose doesn't stimulate insulin production, so blood sugar levels remain stable.

In 2003, journalist Greg Critser laid out a compelling case against high fructose corn syrup in his book, “Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World.” He writes that federal policies aimed to stabilize food prices and support corn production in the 1970s led to a glut of corn and then to high fructose corn syrup. With this cheaper way to sweeten food, producers pumped up the size and amount of sweet snacks and drinks on the market and increased their profits. Critser wrote that despite the food industry's arguments that sugar is sugar, whether fructose or sucrose, no group “has yet refuted the growing scientific concern that fructose is about the furthest thing from natural that one can imagine, let alone eat.”

Although some researchers have long been suspicious that too much fructose can cause problems, the latest case against high fructose corn syrup began a few years ago. Dr. George Bray, principal investigator of the Diabetes Prevention Program at Louisiana State University Medical Center told the International Congress on Obesity that in 1980, just after high fructose corn syrup was introduced in mass quantities, the previously stable obesity rates began to climb. By 2000, they had doubled.

Furthermore, in 2002 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published research that showed that teenagers' milk consumption between 1965 and 1996 decreased by 36 percent, while soft drink consumption increased by more than 200 percent. Bray argues that without calcium, which nutritionists agree can help the body regulate weight, kids got fatter. He says that he could find no other single combination of environmental or food changes that were as significant to the rise in obesity.

Because fructose doesn't activate the hormones that regulate body weight as do other types of carbohydrate composed of glucose, consuming a diet high in fructose leads to taking in more calories and to weight gain.

Other researchers are finding new problems with high fructose corn syrup. A study in a recent Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that women whose diet was high in total carbohydrate and fructose intake had an increased risk of colorectal cancer. And Pediatric researchers at UCSF, are seeing sick children whose bodies have been overloaded with fructose from naturally occurring fructose in fruit juice combined with soft drinks and processed foods. The way the body handles glucose is different than fructose. We can overload the intestines' ability to absorb carbohydrates by taking in too much fructose. This can cause cramps, bloating and loose stools. These researchers believe we're just eating too much HFCS.

It’s not surprising to most of us that a Pepsi or a Fig Newton has plenty of high fructose corn syrup. What is surprising is the products where the sweetener hides out and how disguised it can be by the deceptively small serving sizes listed on the nutrition label. Although the labels show teaspoons of sugar per serving, people often eat more than one serving.

At the end of the day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture advises most people to limit themselves to 10 to 12 teaspoons of added sugars a day. HFCS changes the way our bodies hormones react to sugar intake. The hormones that would otherwise tell our bodies that we are no longer hungry, don’t react as they should. The fat content of our bodies increase because of the way HFCS is handled by our bodies. Our country’s rapidly escalating obesity problems parallel the introduction of HFCS in our diets. And, it’s in everything, it tastes good, and we just keep eating it even when we shouldn’t.