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Last Updated: Jun 30, 2008 - 11:14:37 AM |
Science-Based Information on High Fructose Corn Syrup Missing in the Obesity Debate
The March 29 article "Eat To Live: Fructose -- the new fat?" mischaracterizes high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a natural product derived from U.S. corn fields, by suggesting that it is sweeter than sucrose, causes obesity and diabetes, increases triglycerides and alters the balance of magnesium in the body.
HFCS is a natural, nutritive sweetener that contains approximately equal ratios of fructose and glucose. Table sugar also contains equal ratios of fructose and glucose. As noted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996, "the saccharide composition (glucose to fructose ratio) of HFCS is approximately the same as that of honey, invert sugar and the disaccharide sucrose (or table sugar)." In 1983, the FDA listed HFCS as "Generally Recognized as Safe" (known as GRAS status) for use in food, and reaffirmed that ruling in 1996.
HFCS is not sweeter than sugar. When HFCS was developed it was specifically formulated to provide sweetness equivalent to sucrose.
Recent mischaracterizations of HFCS as a unique cause of obesity do not represent the consensus opinion of scientific experts. The November/December 2005 issue of Nutrition Today includes a report from the Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy and its Ceres Workshop, which was compiled by scientists who reviewed a number of critical commentaries about HFCS. Their analysis found that HFCS is not a unique contributor to obesity.1
Many parts of the world, including Australia, Mexico and Europe, have rising rates of obesity and diabetes despite having little or no HFCS in their foods and beverages, which supports findings by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Diabetes Association that the primary causes of diabetes are obesity, advancing age and heredity.
USDA data show that per capita consumption of HFCS has been declining in recent years, yet the incidence of obesity and diabetes in the United States remains on the rise. The USDA estimates per capita HFCS consumption in 2004 was 42.3 lbs per year.2
We are aware of no studies that have examined the relationship between HFCS and triglycerides. Instead, this suggestion is usually based on studies that test the effects of pure or near-pure fructose, rather than HFCS, and at dose/exposure levels that far exceed what occurs in the typical American diet (see e.g., Bantle JP, Raatz SK, Thomas W, Georgopoulos A, Am J Clin Nutr, 72(5):1128-34). Such unusual exposures to pure fructose are highly artificial and yield predictable metabolic anomalies.
The suggestion that fructose can alter the balance of magnesium in the body is based on research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Milne DB, Nielsen FH, J Am Coll Nutr, 19(1):31-37) in which the test diet contained more than 3 times the current recommended levels of added sugars as fructose, and more than 6 times recommended levels as total sugars. The extreme fructose diet tested was so far removed from both typical and recommended levels that the conclusions should not be considered particularly meaningful for the typical American diet, let alone be extrapolated to HFCS which, like sucrose and honey, is composed of a roughly equal mixture of glucose and fructose.
HFCS can be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet. According to the American Dietetic Association, "Consumers can safely enjoy a range of nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners when consumed in a diet that is guided by current federal nutrition recommendations ... as well as individual health goals."
Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association
1701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
(202)-331-1634
1. Hein GL, Storey ML, White JS, Lineback DR, Highs and Lows of High Fructose Corn Syrup: A Report from the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy and Its Ceres Workshop, Nutrition Today. 2005;40(6):253-256
2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Table 52 -- High fructose corn syrup: estimated number of per capita calories consumed daily, by calendar year, Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook 2005
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