I find myself struggling lately with the High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) topic.
Don’t get me wrong; I get that sugar is bad for a variety of reasons. I rarely, if ever, exceed more than 40 grams of sugar in a day. What I’ve been struggling with is whether or not HFCS is really any different than sucrose (table sugar)?
Chemistry Refresher
Sugar is a simple carbohydrate which means it is broken down quickly by the body and used as a source of energy. Sugars include monosaccharides, disaccharides, trisaccharides and oligosaccharides. As the names suggest, multiple sugar molecules (monosacharides) can be combined.
Monosaccharides are the simplest form of carbohydrates. They consist of one sugar and include glucose, fructose, galactose, xylose and ribose.
Disaccharides are made up of two monosaccharides and include sucrose (table sugar), lactose and maltose.
Like other carbohydrates, sugar contributes 4 calories per gram.
HFCS Versus Other Sugars
The Corn Refiners Association will argue that HFCS is similar in composition to sucrose (table sugar). A recent article by Lyle McDonald compared the percentage of fructose and glucose content across different sweeteners and indeed, the composition of HFCS is similar to its counterparts:
Health Concerns Surrounding HFCS
I was listening to a podcast the other day that quickly demonized HFCS by referring to a study that indicates that un-bound fructose causes extremely elevated levels of reactive carbonyls – compounds that are typically elevated in the blood of people with diabetes.
Specifically, here is what was said during the podcast:
It is true that, in fact, high fructose corn syrup is far more sinister than regular sugar. They were doing a study with diabetics and they were finding a compound called carbonyl at extremely elevated levels in diabetics.
When high fructose corn syrup is manufactured there’s a reaction with fructose and glucose molecules where they become unbound and they elevate the level of carbonyls and this is obviously what’s going on with your soda.
With regular sugar, sucrose does not become unbound. The way that it’s processed is totally different.
The podcast in question is one that is hosted by an individual that I feel is extremely intelligent and well versed in many areas of health and fitness. Unfortunately, the information reported is simply incorrect.
The study being referenced is a 2007 research paper by Dr. Chi-Tang Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University. Dr. Ho’s study did not use diabetics as a control base. Rather, it was a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages. If you read on you’ll better understand as to why sucrose does indeed become unbound if used in the manufacturing of soda.
For full disclosure, I requested Lyle McDonald’s assistance in deciphering Dr. Ho’s research and, as always, Lyle’s input was very insightful.
The Research Study De-Constructed
The original news report entitled Soda Warning? New Study Supports Link Between Diabetes, High-Fructose Corn Syrup points out that Dr. Ho’s team tested 11 carbonated soft drinks that contained HFCS and 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 research notes.
Keep that last sentence in mind as we’re going to get back to that point later on in this posting.
The news article goes on to point out that
Ho’s group is also probing the mechanisms by which carbonation increases the amount of reactive carbonyls formed in sodas containing HFCS. They note that non-carbonated fruit juices containing HFCS have one-third the amount of reactive carbonyl species found in carbonated sodas with HFCS.
The diabetes connection is that reactive carbonyls are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes.
The question begs to be asked, is HFCS the problem, or is it carbonation plus HFCS that is the real issue?
Lyle was able to pinpoint a blog posting with the following information:
First, Chi-Tang Ho et al did not compare the HFCS sodas to sucrose sodas. They compared 11 HFCS sodas to a diet soda control. There was no sucrose soda control, so this research does not allows us to make comparisons.
Second, though the article states that sucrose does not have reactive carbonyls by virtue of the fact that fructose and glucose are bound together in sucrose, this overlooks the fact that sucrose is in fact hydrolyzed in soft drinks into – you guessed it – fructose and glucose.
For instance, The Soft Drinks Companion: A Technical Handbook for the Beverage Industry, Maurice Shachman, pp. 81 – 82, states:
The sugar inversion process takes place under acidic conditions and speeds up with a decrease in pH. Soft drinks are flavored with acids to achieve the sourness notes essential for their taste profiles. They are therefore acidic drinks, usually in the pH+3 range. This is especially true of the sour fruit flavors, such as lemon and other citrus fruit species. Cola beverages that often use phosphoric acid as the acidulant are at even lower pH values. In carbonated soft drinks, the dissolved carbon dioxide is converted to carbonic acid, which further adds to the acidification of these drinks. Regardless of the exact acid content of such beverages, they can all be considered to a lesser or greater degree, as acidic solutions. As such, some inversion of the sucrose in these beverages will take place.
So, even if the drinks starts with sucrose, much if not most of it will be broken down into unbound fructose and glucse by the acid in the soda. In fact, according to Marov and Dowling (1990)*, at typical storage times and temperatures, more than 90% of the sucrose in soft drinks can by hydrolyzed. Therefore, even if a soft drink is sweetened with sucrose, unbound glucose and fructose will start to appear immediately and be available to participate in carbonyl forming reactions.
* Marov, G. J., Dowling, J.F., 1990. Sugar in beverages. In: Pennington, N.L., Baker, C.W. (Eds.(, Sugar: A User’s Guide to Sucrose, vol. 13. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, pp. 189 – 211.
Based on this information, Lyle drew the following conclusion and I concur -
There is still NO functional difference in a soda sweetened with HFCS vs. sucrose vs. invert sugar vs. anything else. Put them in acid and they become unbound; carbonate them and you generate carbonyls.
My Two Cents
I myself was on the anti-HFCS bandwagon. The fact is, several times I started to compose seething postings in regards to the commercials run by The Corn Refiners Association.
However, the more I have researched the topic, the more questions I have. Ultimately, it seems as if current research is inconclusive and High Fructose Corn Syrup is simply today’s whipping-boy, same as dietary fat and carbohydrates have been in the past.
We live in a sound-bite era where context is often missing and it becomes easy to draw conclusions without having reviewed all the evidence.
I read a statistic that stated that the per-capita consumption of soft drinks is in excess of 150 quarts per year, or about three quarts per week in the U.S. When you consider that a 20 oz bottle of soda contains 250 calories and the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar, it seems to me that we’re kidding ourselves by focusing on HFCS as being the problem.
My opinion on HFCS is the same as it is in regards to all simple carbohydrates – they should be limited as they are wasted calories, void of any nutritional value.
Train hard; stay strong.
Peace.
Susan
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
i think it's your last two paragraphs that makes it easy to demonize HFCS. even if they are wrong about just how bad it is.. it's a great idea to reduce your consumption for overall health.
One of the best commercials aired on television that I ever saw, in terms of it's lasting effect on me, was one in which individuals were shown spooning up a bowl ful of granulated sugar, or, stopping a jog to chug a bottle full of granulated sugar. It poured out of the bottle all over the jogger. Now they didn't succeed in making me remember what product they were advertising, but they definately made an impression on me insofar as what these so-called energy drinks are — a bottle of liquid sugar. The site of the jogger pouring sugar down her throat was so off-putting, it cured me on the spot.
Ever since reading books like 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' by Pollan I've looked at HFCS as more of a red flag than something bad in of itself. If a food has HFCS in the ingredients, than it was probably manufactured, and I probably shouldn't eat it. HFCS itself may be a whipping boy, but it's also only found in stuff you should avoid anyway.
I look at food this way. If what I am about to eat or drink, does not resemble food in it's primary form, then I usually make the choice not to eat it. Realistically, most of us live in a convenience society; eating well often requires more effort as you cannot just buy your meal off the shelf, you have to make it.
There is a lot to be said for the 'slow' food movement and macrobiotic systems of food preparation.
I have weened myself of most sugars and I don't drink sodas or cordials. However, I am no angel, I am still working on reducing my craving for chocolate, which primarily, consists of more modified sugars and other chemicals than cocoa.
What I learned from quick reading your article is that HFCS is at least as bad as to the body as table sugar. Since I already deamonize table sugar, Ill go ahead a deamonize HFCS as well.
What acutally makes HFCS more deamonic than table sugar is its much lower price. This is what allowed HFCS and its deamon fathers corn and soy monoculture to shape the crap food many of us eat today. And why do we eat it? Because we are either too stupid or too poor to do otherwise.
Every year I observe dietary restrictions during Passover. In some communities, this includea a ban on corn and corn-derived products, such as HFCS. When I have attempted to abide by that restriction, I have found it surprisingly difficult. I've never been much of a soda drinker and don't really like the taste of sugar-enriched juices. But, I certainly enjoy granola bars, the occasional candy bar, etc. It seems that almost any snack food of the big brand, easily available in vending machines variety contains a lot of HFCS. It's not the corn syrup's fault that it's become a staple of flavoring because it's cheap. I'm pretty sure government farm subsidies make it unrealistically cheap, but that's another issue. In any case, HFCS does skew our understanding of food, since part of the generalized problem of eating badly in this country is that healthy food that is low in sugar, doesn't use HFCS, is low in carbohydrates, etc. is difficult and more expensive than the alternative. In most european countries, a box of breakfast granola that is sweetened with honey and dried fruit like raisins is much cheaper than the Lucky Charms – type option. The result? Much less obesity and generally better health. HFCS and its prevalence is just a symptom in a hugely problematic food system we live with in this country, where whole milk is covered by food stamps, but skim isn't and where fresh vegetables are exponentially more expensive than a frozen pizza.
The media has a horrible tendency of over-sensationalizing almost everything. Especially when it comes to research. Most of the documented research on nearly any subject is so technical and muddled with verbage that many people don't want to be bothered having to read, let alone finding someone who can decipher the code. Having had to spend years reading research and doing my own, I see this a lot.
In the end, anyone who consumed that much soda is going to have weight problems. Let alone diabetes issues later in life.
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Hi Susan,
I read your article with great interest. I was aware of sucrose hydrolysis in low pH drinks, but not the extent of the hydrolysis as you have highlighted. HFCS-55 according to the CRA is 55%fructose:45% glucose. This appears to be just a little different than the 50:50 ratio found in sucrose, until you do the math. 55%:45% = 55/45= 1.22. This means that in every can of Coke there is, compared to glucose, 22% more fructose. Knowing what we now know from studies directly comparing the metabolic effects of fructose vs. glucose sweetened beverages, could that imbalance have contributed to our health woes. If you use the values in McDonald's table, the percentage is markedly greater, 55%:42%=1.31 (the relationship F vs. F/G is not linear). So why did the CRA choose a ratio for HFCS different than 50:50, found in sucrose. The most benign reason is that the 55:45 ratio simulated the sweetness of sucrose. Other reasons are that by making the sweetener a little sweeter, the end manufacturers could use less, saving money.
part 2-
HFCS is a black box. When listed as an ingredient on the nutrition label, one does not know the ratio being used, HFCS-42, HFCS-55 or ??. You might be interested in Dr. Dana Flavin's, M.D. article "The Metabolic Dangers of high Fructose Corn Syrup" in LifeExtension.com. Ditch HFCS, especially HFCS-55. To your health.
Go to Google and search on HFCS +mercury, and read the articles on mercury contamination of high fructose corn syrup. Then search on articles about brominated vegetable oil, which is an ingredient in Mountain Dew and some flavors of Gatorade, but is banned in many countries. I am old enough to remember when diet soft drinks contained cyclamates, which have since been banned. I have questions about the safety of aspartame too. I'd rather err on the side of caution and avoid these products.
Interesting article. I have a personal experience to share about HFCS.
Here in the UK, it's not actually used in many products yet, thankfully. Sadly I do have a bit of a sweet tooth and on a hot day, when you've been out on a 40-mile bike ride, a can of full-fat freezing cold 'famous brown' soft drink can hit the spot. In the UK they still make the major soft drinks with sugar, rather than HFCS.
A couple of years ago I holidayed in the USA with my wife and two kids, going to Walt Disney World. I, for two days, drank plenty of the sticky sweet stuff – although no more than I have done so in the past in the UK, and on the third day, I had another full-fat soft drink around lunchtime and felt really ill. Lethargic, and dull headache. I had a read of the ingredients as I was sure it was the drink as it tasted really different to the same beverage in the UK, and noticed it contained HFCS. Not knowing much about it, but knowing how our body has to change fructose to make it into a useable sugar for metabolic processing, I wondered if that was my problem. Some sort of HFCS intolerance.
As a test, I switched from Full Fat to Diet drinks, and I felt much better. The lethargy passed and I was OK for the rest of the week as long as I stuck to Diet drinks. So at the beginning of week two, I did an experiment. I again on the monday consumed normal full fat drinks. By the mid-afternoon I had the same lethargy – much like a sugar low, but much more pronounced. The headache was there along with the general malaise. As soon as I switched back to Diet drinks, I felt fine, and never had a repeat of the problem for the whole vacation.
When I got back to the UK I did a test – went to a theme park in the UK, drank bottled full-fat (sugar-based) soft drinks – and felt fine.
So I personally know I'm HFCS intolerant. And anecodotal evidence after discussing it with some other people in the theme parks seemed to show it wasn't just me that would suffer. In fact, one woman told me that in San Diego, they would drive into Mexico just to buy coca-cola that was made with Cane Sugar instead of HFCS as it affected her so much.
Have you ever consumed the corn in which high fructose corn syrup is derived from? From my understanding, its not editable. Why consume food that at its base state, is not editable unless we do some fantastic chemical processes in order for us to make it more editable?
How about this if it hasn't already been discussed. Just another form of food containing poison!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...
HFCS is much more problematic that just the sugar part of it. Fructose can only be metabolized in the liver where it is then stored. In essence it is nearly the same as the way alcohol is metabolized and stored in the liver. There are many problems that can arise from this, one being a fatty liver. The researcher that has a video on YouTube is Dr. Robert Lustig if anyone wants to watch. 90 minutes, but worth the watch.
Michael, HFCS is (I believe) made from dent corn, which is used for human food consumption as corn meal, corn starch, etc. It is edible, but it is not table corn — which you probably will see sold as "sweet corn". Dent corn contains more starch and less sugar whereas sweet corn has a higher sugar content and lower starch content…