High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is one of the most discussed ingredients in the modern diet. The media often talk about the benefits, or at least the lack of harm, of consuming it every day, while some doctors and nutrition researchers advise limiting it.
The annual HFCS intake of an average American increased from zero to more than 60 pounds per person, mostly from processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.
During that same period, diabetes rates increased more than seven times, and obesity rates more than three times. HFCS is not the only cause, but according to Dr. Mark Hyman it can’t be ignored.
However, the large print and television advertising campaigns of the Corn Refiners Association try to banish the “myth” that high fructose corn syrup is harmful, and to convince the public that it is the same as cane sugar, by involving “medical and nutrition experts”.
According to them, HFCS is a “natural” product, and when used in moderate amounts it is a healthy part of everyone’s diet.
Dr. Hyman sees one problem with that message. In his view, the amounts of HFCS people actually consume are linked to obesity, heart disease, dementia, tooth decay, liver problems, and other chronic conditions.
The Lengths the Corn Industry Will Go To
According to Dr. Hyman, the corn industry’s goal is to call into question every statement about harm from HFCS consumption, and to add to the confusion by referring to its product as a natural “corn sugar”.
In one commercial, a father explains his worries about his daughter’s HFCS intake, which is why he consulted nutrition and medical experts.
He says they explained to him that the body can’t distinguish corn sugar from cane sugar, meaning they have the same effects on our bodies.
Doctors throughout America are also directly targeted. They receive a 12-page monograph from the Corn Refiners Association, explaining that high fructose corn syrup is completely safe and no different from cane sugar.
Mark Hyman, MD, explains that besides this monograph, he received a personal letter from the same association, in which he was put “on notice” for each time he mentioned the problems with HFCS in our diet. He says he was surprised that they were tracking his statements so closely.
Industry websites such as www.cornsugar.com and www.sweetsurprise.com present what they call the truth about HFCS, quoting professors of medicine and nutrition and prominent leaders from Harvard and other institutions.
But why does the corn industry spend millions on campaigns to convince healthcare professionals and consumers that its product is safe?
Is it misinformation, or really a “sweet surprise”, as the Corn Refiners Association claims?
The Science of HFCS
Let’s look at the topic from the point of view of science. You might find some of the following points to be a surprise of their own.
The ads recommend getting nutrition advice from a doctor, which is reasonable. Still, Dr. Hyman points out that nutrition is a field where many doctors receive little training, so it helps to look at the research itself.
Mark Hyman has studied this topic for more than a decade and has interviewed, read, or personally talked with the majority of the “nutrition and medical experts” quoted in support of the claim that there is no difference between corn sugar and cane sugar.
What he found was quite different, and in his opinion the role of high fructose corn syrup in the worldwide rise of obesity and chronic disease becomes clearer.
Mark Hyman, together with Dr. Bruce Ames, one of the foremost nutritional scientists in the world, and the nutritional biochemist Dr. Jeffrey Bland, reviewed the existing science. Dr. Ames also shared new evidence from his research on the way high fructose corn syrup may contribute to obesity and inflammation in the body.
The following five reasons explain why Dr. Hyman advises limiting products that contain HFCS.
1. Sugar in Any Form Is a Problem in Very Large Amounts
When sugar in any form is consumed in what Dr. Hyman calls “pharmacological doses”, it can contribute to disease and obesity. Both HFCS and cane sugar are a concern when the annual intake per person reaches about 140 pounds.
One 20 oz HFCS-sweetened soda, tea, or sports drink contains about 17 teaspoons of sugar, and the average modern teenager often drinks two such beverages a day. In Dr. Hyman’s words, people are practically conducting an uncontrolled experiment on themselves.
By his estimate, our distant ancestors consumed about 20 teaspoons of sugar a year, not a day. With this in mind, the corn industry may have a point: sugar is sugar, and quantity matters. However, there are several important differences.
2. Cane Sugar and HFCS Are Not Processed by the Body in the Same Way
Cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup are not biochemically identical, and the body does not handle them in exactly the same way. HFCS does not occur in nature, so Dr. Hyman argues it should not be called “natural”. The process of making it from corn is also not very transparent.
When the journalist Michael Pollan wanted to observe this process for his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill did not allow it.
The sugars are extracted through a chemical enzymatic process, and the outcome is a new compound called high fructose corn syrup.
Regular sucrose (cane sugar) is made of two tightly bound sugar molecules in equal amounts, glucose and fructose. The enzymes in our digestive tract must break the cane sugar down into fructose and glucose before these can be absorbed by the body.
High fructose corn syrup is also made of glucose and fructose, but not in equal amounts. The fructose-to-glucose ratio is 55 to 45, in an unbound form. Products with high fructose corn syrup are sweeter than cane sugar products, since fructose is sweeter than glucose.
Moreover, HFCS products are cheaper because of the government farm bill corn subsidies. This allowed the normal soda size to go from 8 oz to 20 oz without any great financial cost for manufacturers, but, as Dr. Hyman notes, with a large cost for people in terms of chronic disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Let’s return to biochemistry. As the two sugars are not chemically bound, no digestion is needed, so they are absorbed more quickly into the bloodstream. The quickly absorbed fructose goes directly to the liver, where it promotes lipogenesis, the production of fats such as triglycerides and cholesterol.
This is why Dr. Hyman connects high HFCS intake with “fatty liver”, a condition which affects about 70 million people in the U.S. Glucose, in turn, raises insulin, the main fat-storage hormone in our body.
According to Dr. Hyman, these features of HFCS can lead to metabolic disturbances that are associated with increased appetite, weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia.
Mark Hyman also learned something more from his meeting with Dr. Ames. His group conducted research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, which suggested that the free fructose from high fructose corn syrup needs more energy to be absorbed by the gut, and takes up two phosphorus molecules from ATP, the energy source of our body.
This uses up the energy supply in the gut that is needed to maintain the integrity of the intestinal lining. Intestinal cells are held together by little “tight junctions”, which keep food and bacteria from leaking across the intestinal membrane and triggering an immune reaction and inflammation in the body.
According to this research, high doses of free fructose may weaken the intestinal lining and allow bacterial byproducts and partly digested food proteins to enter the bloodstream. This may promote inflammation, which researchers associate with diabetes, obesity, heart disease, accelerated aging, and dementia.
Fructose in fruit occurs naturally and is part of a complex of fiber and nutrients, so it does not have the same biological effects as the high doses of free fructose in “corn sugar”.
The bottom line, in Dr. Hyman’s view, is that industrially produced “corn sugar” and cane sugar are not physiologically and biochemically the same.
3. HFCS May Contain Contaminants
According to Dr. Hyman, high fructose corn syrup may contain contaminants such as mercury, which are not regularly measured in this product.
He describes how one FDA researcher was repeatedly refused when she asked corn producers to ship her a barrel of HFCS to test for contaminants. When she said she represented a new soft drink company, the producers quickly shipped her a big vat of high fructose corn syrup.
This sample was used in a study that reported detectable levels of mercury in some HFCS samples, as a result of the use of chlor-alkali products in the manufacturing process.
Dr. Hyman argues that a product with such contaminants can’t be called natural. He adds that chemical analysis of HFCS shows chemical peaks that are neither fructose nor glucose. So what are these compounds?
In his opinion, this points to impurities in this processed form of sugar. The nature and effects of these compounds have not been fully explained or tested, and he believes they deserve more attention, especially in a food ingredient that makes up as much as 15-20% of the daily calorie intake of an average American.
4. Independent Experts Do Not All Support HFCS
Regardless of the corn industry’s assertions, some independent nutrition and medical experts do not support the use of high fructose corn syrup in our diet.
The corn industry’s websites www.sweetsurprise.com and www.cornsugar.com support their claim that corn sugar and cane sugar are equal by “quoting” various experts.
The published work of Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., professor at the Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focuses on the harms linked to sugar-sweetened drinks, as well as their contribution to obesity.
In the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he explains the process by which free fructose may contribute to obesity.
He starts by saying that the digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose are different from those of glucose. The metabolism of fructose in the liver favors fat production (lipogenesis), and, unlike glucose, fructose neither increases leptin production nor stimulates the secretion of insulin.
Since leptin and insulin act as key signals in the regulation of appetite and body weight, dietary fructose may lead to increased energy intake and weight gain.
Dr. Popkin concludes that the increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup has a temporal relation to the rise in obesity, and that the over-consumption of HFCS in calorically sweetened drinks may contribute to it.
Although the corn industry continues to state that all the sugar we eat is the same, Dr. Popkin’s work suggests that different types of sugar have different effects on appetite, absorption, and metabolism.
David S. Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, has published widely on the harms of sugar-sweetened drinks and their link to obesity.
He stated that his comment in support of HFCS was taken completely out of context by the corn industry, as has been the case with other scientists who are concerned about HFCS and obesity.
5. HFCS Usually Signals a Low-Quality Processed Food
High fructose corn syrup almost always indicates an industrial food product of poor quality that is low in nutrients.
So the last, but not the least, reason to limit products that contain high fructose corn syrup is their poor nutritional quality: they are often full of artificial ingredients and empty calories.
When you see HFCS on a label, you will know that the product is not a whole, truly fresh food rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and phytonutrients. Choosing fewer of these products is a simple step toward a healthier diet.
People should lower their overall sugar intake in any case, and this change alone can support better health. The bottom line, once again, is that in Dr. Hyman’s view corn sugar and cane sugar are not the same.
The Two Main Issues
According to Dr. Hyman, there are just two real issues:
- The very large doses of HFCS and sugar that we consume have never before been seen in human history: about 140 pounds a year today, compared with an estimated 20 teaspoons a year 10,000 years ago.
- HFCS is almost always found in very low-quality products that are poor in nutrients and high in added fats, salt, and chemical additives.
He believes these facts should be the main topic of the national conversation, rather than the confusing statements and ads by the corn industry, whose purpose is to assure the nation that the biochemistry of industrially produced sugar and regular sugar is the same.
More About Mark Hyman
Hyman is a practicing family physician and a globally recognized speaker, leader, advocate, and educator in his field. He is a nine-time #1 New York Times bestselling author and the director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine.
Moreover, he is chairman of the board of the Institute for Functional Medicine, founder and medical director of The UltraWellness Center, and a medical editor of The Huffington Post.
Mark has been a frequent contributor on various shows such as The Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show, CBS This Morning, The View, CNN, and the Katie Couric Show.
Via Dr Hyman | Bio Med Central | NCBI
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always talk to your doctor about any health concern.