Why it matters:
Because your body metabolizes fructose differently than other sugars (read: very poorly), and since the 1980s fructose has become a ubiquitous part of the American diet.
Recap:
A recent study by scientists at UC Davis lends more evidence to the argument that fructose (and by association, it’s prolific cousin High Fructose Corn Syrup) is worse for you than glucose.
The cane or beet sugar you heap into your coffee every morning is sucrose, a disaccharide (fancy science talk for a natural compound of fructose and glucose in a 1:1 ratio). Fructose occurs naturally in most fruit, but it’s ingested most commonly today as the main ingredient in High Fructose Corn Syrup.
HFCS is created by converting the natural glucose in corn (stored in the kernels as starch) into fructose, which is then blended with pure glucose in a 55 to 45 % mix, respectively. To food manufacturers HFCS has become the sweetener of choice: it’s a liquid, it’s stable, it’s concentrated, and… it’s subsidized (read: cheap).
In an unprecedented move, the UC study decided to go directly to human subjects to get their findings. Over the course of 10 weeks, scientists fed a group of 17 subjects a special diet containing high levels of pure fructose, another group or 15 was fed a control diet using glucose in place of the fructose. At the end of the study the fructose group had developed fat throughout their abdominal cavities, and around their hearts, livers, digestive organs, in addition to developing symptoms linked to diabetes and heart disease. Their glucose-gobbling peers showed none of these developments.
Organs packed in fat is troubling, but equally so are the “symptoms linked to diabetes and heart disease.”
Unlike glucose, some of which passes through the liver and is then excreted, 100% of fructose that’s consumed is taken up by the liver. This is turn leads to increased fat deposition in the abdominal cavity and increased blood levels of triglycerides.
Commentary:
To be clear, the scientists in the study used 100% fructose and 100% glucose. Both concentrations are extremely rare in the “real world”, though, depending on who you talk to, regular “corn syrup” is pure glucose. The sugars most Americans consume are sucrose and high fructose corn syrup.
On the surface, comparing sucrose with its 50/50 ratio of fructose to glucose, with high fructose corn syrup’s 55/45 blend seems like splitting hairs. But over the course of a year the average American consumes 156 pounds of sugar. That’s like eating a 17 year-old. (They’re pretty much made of sugar anyway.)
Despite the fact that 30 percent of your sugar comes in the form of sucrose, with the remaining 70 coming in the form of HFCS, you’re still getting about 55% of your total sugar from fructose. Or to put it another way, an extra 16 pounds of pure fructose a year.
So are fructose and HFCS the cause of America’s obesity epidemic? Cause? No. Contributing factor? Most definitely. The fact is we consume too much refined sugar. It’s in pretty much everything we eat, and in growing concentrations. But when the majority of that sugar comes in the form of fructose, you’re really rolling the dice on your heart and liver.
But this is an environmental website, eh? Okay. The government subsidizes corn and soy crops (see our piece on Monsanto), crops that are notoriously fertilizer, soil, and pesticide intensive. And with corn and soy quickly pushing other crops to the fringes, America is quickly adopting monoculture (or duo-culture), surviving on various forms of just two crops. So…
Creative Solutions:
- Eat less sugar and avoid GMOs
- Get your sweet fix from fruits
- Grow your own fruits and veggies
Currently, I am on the paleo diet, also known as the caveman diet. Basically it is all the foods that cavemen would eat, or all that is natural. This has allowed my body to have energy that has been untapped in my system and makes me feel like I can go all day without any crashes. If you’ve found yourself consuming a lot of corn syrup products, as I have in the past, try this out for a week and see how you feel. It’s been working for me so far. http://paleodiet.com/
I have long maintained that HFCS is unhealthy.
I have suggested to readers that they avoid it as much as possible.
If it is listed as one of the top 5 or 6 ingredients in the food you are eating – cut that food out of your diet.
You will be happy you did.
Peter
FitnessOver50
Get Up And Get Out There
Is agave nectar considered HFCS? I use agave nectar or honey in my coffee and I’m wondering if the same bad effects of fructose is the same with these natural fructose?
Pam,
Good question. HFCS is specifically a blend of corn syrups (usually in a ratio of 55% fructose to 45% glucose).
I did a little searching and it sounds like honey is mostly fructose (38%), glucose (31%), and water (17%). The remainder is made up of others sugars and solids. The thing to keep in mind is that honey has about the same perceived sweetness as sugar, but is also, in effect, a syrup (17% water, remember?). So you’re getting less actual sugar for the same sweetness.
Depending on who you ask, agave looks to have a similar composition to HFCS, and is seen by some as a snake in the grass. Like HFCS, it is also sweeter than table sugar. So, as with honey, less can be more. In the case of prepackaged foods (pop, ketchup, etc.) companies decide how much sweetener to use, and they’ve generally decided that MORE is more. When you use agave at home, you have much more control.
Both sweeteners can be damaging in large quantities, so there’s a lot to be said for being the one in charge of the spoon. But based on my quick search I’d say you’re better off with the honey, which has lower concentrations of fructose and glucose, and also contains trace vitamins and proteins. That, and it ties in perfectly with my piece on Beekeeping.