High fructose corn Syrup, or HFCS, has been in the news a lot lately. Sometimes it’s viewed as a major health threat, while other times it’s presented as a perfectly healthy form of ordinary sugar. Which is correct?
What HFCS is
HFCS is a commercial sweetener derived from corn. It is made by putting cornstarch and water through an extensive and complex series of processes that produces a syrup made up of roughly equal portions of two natural sugars, fructose and glucose.
HFCS has about the same amount of calories and sweetening ability as sucrose (table sugar), and like sucrose it has no vitamins, minerals, or other nutrients.
The Most Commonly Used Sweetener In Packaged Foods
Since HFCS was developed in the 1970s, it has largely replaced cane sugar in the preparation of packaged food and drinks. Not only is it far cheaper than cane sugar, it is more soluable, easier to ship, and has a longer shelf life, and it’s now the most widely used commercial sweetener.
HFCS is typically found in soft drinks and carbonated beverages (including Coke, Pepsi, and other internationally known brands) as well as a myriad of other products including cereals, packaged snacks, cookies and other commercially prepared baked goods, sauces and sauce mixes, cake mixes, and more.
How HFCS is processed in the body
The body processes the two simple sugars that make up HFCS in different ways. Both types of sugar are rapidly absorbed directly into the bloodstream, but while glucose is processed by the release of insulin to divert the glucose molecules into the muscles and organs for evergy, fructose is converted to usable energy by the liver.
Too much of either glucose or fructose creates problems. Glucose has an immediate effect on blood sugar levels, and the body’s release of insulin to compensate can result in a yo-yo effect of blood sugar levels that first soar far above normal and then drop far below normal.
Fructose doesn’t have the same immediate impact on blood glucose levels, but when we consume large amounts of fructose the liver isn’t always able to keep up with the need to rapidly convert it to usable energy. When this happens, the liver coverts the fructose to fats and releases it into the bloodstream in the form of tryglicerides. High levels of triglycerides are important risk factors for cardiovascular disease and a number of other serious health problems.
Health concerns about HFCS go beyond the body’s reaction to fructose and glucose, however. It is believed that the processes used to manufacture HFCS creates specific chemical properties that could have potentially adverse health effects, and ongoing research appears to bear out that conjecture.
Extensive research, including a high-profile study by Princeton University, has shown that animals given a standard diet supplemented with HFCS-sweetened water consistently gained weight much more rapidly than did those given the same basic diet with sugar-sweetened water.
In addition to gaining weight, the animals in the Princeton study demonstrated the characteristics of obesity, including substantial increases in abdominal fat and circulating triglycerides – the same characteristics that are known as significant risk factors for high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, cancer and diabetes in humans.
Most recently, studies monitoring adolescents consuming a diet high in HFCS indicated that higher consumption correlated to the same higher risk factors observed in the animal studies.
What’s the solution?
Whether or not you see HFCS as a health threat, medical experts agree that it’s always prudent to consume added sugars of any kind in moderation. The maximum recommended amount of added sugars for an average woman is just 5 teaspoons per day, while the recommended amount for men is a maximum on 9 teaspoons. When contrasted to the actual average consumption of just over 22 teaspoons per day, it’s clear that eating too much sugar, regardless of its form, is a major health concern.
One way to limit the amount of added sugars in general, and of HFCS in particular, is to become a label reader – know what you’re putting into your body. Limiting the amount of prepared and prepackaged foods you eat can also go a long way toward reducing sugar intake; for example, cooking at home rather than eating fast food, or making your own sugar free desserts rather than buying your sweets from the grocery store.