Corn Syrup Dangers

Almost all commercially produced desserts and soft drinks are sweetened with a chemical called high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is convenient for manufacturers because it has a long shelf life and is easy to transport, but evidence suggests that it carries significant health risks.

What is HFCS?

• HFCS is different from corn syrup found in stores. While table and cane sugar contain about an equal mix of two types of sugar, glucose and fructose, HFCS has been chemically treated in order to have more fructose than glucose. Most HFCS is called HFCS 55, meaning it is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. While in most sugars fructose and glucose molecules are stuck together and have to be broken down by the body in order to be used, in HFCS there are a lot of free fructose molecules. This difference has been revealed to cause significant health risks.

The History of HFCS Use

• Before the 1970s, almost all sugar people ate came from natural sources such as sugar cane and sugar beets. This sugar was in the form of sucrose (a glucose molecule and a fructose molecule stuck together). In the 1970s, however, the food industry discovered how to make use of sugar derived from corn. This sugar was much cheaper and mixed well with most foods. It was also in the form of a syrup so it could be easily transported and stored for long periods of time.
  In the 1980s, people ate about twice as much sucrose as fructose, but today those numbers are reversed, according to a study published in Consumers Research.

HFCS and Obesity

• Since the introduction of HFCS, U.S. obesity rates have skyrocketed. HFCS leads to obesity in two different ways. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, unlike other sugars, HFCS travels straight to the liver, where it is converted to fat. As well as having harmful effects on the liver (a diet high in HFCS can be just as destructive as alcoholism), this makes HFCS more fattening than natural sugars.
  The same study revealed that HFCS also harms the body in another way that compounds the problem. When you eat most carbohydrates, the pancreas begins to produce the chemical insulin, which suppresses your appetite and stops you from eating more. For some reasons not yet clear to science, HFCS does not cause this reaction. Because HFCS does not make you feel full, you continue to eat, eventually taking in many more calories than you would otherwise.

HFCS and Diabetes

• At first it was thought that a diet high in fructose would be beneficial to people suffering from diabetes. More recent research, however, has shown that fructose, especially in the form of HFCS, can have serious effects on people with diabetes and help cause the disease in healthy people.
  The same study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition demonstrated that, as part of its process of being absorbed into the body, HFCS reduces the effectiveness of insulin, which is one of the major symptoms of type-2 diabetes. In addition, HFCS interferes with the heart's absorption of some nutrients, which is especially dangerous for diabetics who are already at increased risk for heart disease.

Other Health Risks

• Some evidence suggests that HFCS prevents the body from properly using other nutrients. For example, the Proceedings of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine demonstrated that HFCS interrupts the body's use of copper, which can lead to bone fragility, infertility, heart arrhythmia, high cholesterol levels and heart attacks. In addition, a diet high in fructose has been suggested to lead to accelerated aging.

The Verdict

• HFCS is bad for you. However, it is in a surprising amount of commercially produced food, and, short of making everything you eat from scratch, it is probably impossible to avoid. It is a good idea to be aware of how much HFCS you are consuming and to try to keep that amount to a minimum. HFCS only has its worst effects in large amounts, so consuming only a small amount every day is unlikely to have serious effects.