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High Fructose Corn Syrup Causes Bigger Weight Gain In Rats
krou writes "In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' Long-term consumption also 'led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides.' Psychology professor Bart Hoebel commented that 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"
Queue Corn Lobby response in 3 . . . 2. . . . 1 . . . .
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
So, how's that unregulated capitalism thing working out for you ?
Stop giving our tax money to farmers to over-grow corn and lower the price to the point where corn syrup is cheaper then sugar. Problem solved.
This would also solve the hemorrhagic ecoli problem in cattle farms by making grass cheaper then corn husks for feed.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
What, no "correlation is not causation" tag? I thought this was Slashdot's response to question the validity of any and all scientific research reported here.
It's pretty much common knowledge that cheaper substitute ingredients are almost always unhealthy.
I distrust "common knowledge, especially this bit. Bear in mind that if you find a case where the cheaper alternative is more healthy, people would pretty much go with it and you'd never think about it as it's a no-brainer. The trouble with that is that it tends to bias your perception, as you've shown and can easily keep you from examining a new option because it is cheaper. (In fact, this has been found to be the case: people won't buy products they think are too low in price even when the quality is as good or better. I wish I had my source handy for that.)
The sugar industry had something to do with the problem. Specifically, pushing for import quotas in the early 80s that increased the price. As a result, manufacturers switched to corn syrup and the candy industry moved to Canada and Mexico. The jobs lost from the candy industry most likely outnumber the jobs saved by the import quotas.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
. . . that nature INTENDED you to drink.
Coffee.
Cane sugar is far more efficient to produce than corn sweetener but is primarily produced in tropical and subtropical regions outside of the United States . The agribusiness lobby in in the United States pays off politicians to restrict imports, driving up the price of sugar within the the U.S. to above that of corn syrup. Without import restrictions on sugar, all those products you buy which are sweetened with corn syrup would be sweetened with sugar instead. And cost less.
You can blame the agribusiness lobby and the protectionist whores in the U.S. congress for this situation. It is a clear-cut case of government power expended to benefit he corrupt few at the expense of the many.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
You do realize that high fructose corn syrup is actually a mixture of fructose and glucose, right? The ratio varies depending on the type of HFCS; many of them are around 50-50 (the two most common are 55% fructose and 42% fructose (HFCS-55 and HFCS-42, respectively). And you know what sucrose breaks down into in the stomach? A 50:50 glucose/fructose mixture.
Its this that makes it somewhat of a stretch to find what could cause a difference (a number of studies find no difference between the two). One theory is that the imbalance between fructose and sucrose, however small, makes the difference. Another is that HFCS doesn't require acid hydrolysis in the stomach, and this somehow affects the results. Another is that people will eat more sweet food when sweetened with HFCS instead of sucrose, although that's questionable and is notwhat this particular study is talking about. But really, the overall evidence is doubtful. The AMA says that it's "unlikely" that HFCS contributes more to obesity than sucrose does.
The Spanish-English dictionary is out of ink.
That, from now on, posting that crap about 'Calories in vs. Calories out' is an offense punishable by death.
I've got a list of medical studies that show *what* you eat has a dramatic affect on your body composition; even when the calories are the same.
And yet - I still hear it....all the time....'Calories in vs. Calories out'.
Really you're going to split hairs on this? Are you a long distance runner? I'm guessing no, so just drink water. It's really not that hard to just jump cold turkey and drink water all the time. It's free and there's no sugar or chemicals.
I am a v1ral sig. Plse c0py me and h3lp me spread. Thank y0u?
While it's not totally new, this is one of the first long term studies comparing consumption of different forms of sugar.
I believe the very first such experiment was where we split the world between Americans, who were given high fructose corn syrup, and everyone else, who continued to use sucrose. The results were pretty conclusive.
The data in the actual paper doesn't support the conclusion in the title of the Slashdot story.
That's great, and avoiding HFCS helps toward that goal (apparently) - HFCS blocks you from feeling full, so you eat more. If that's true and is really a big effect, then all that would be required to get caloric intakes to a reasonable level would be removing HFCS.
That's no longer micromanagement, but a single large change that could (partially) solve the overlying issue, which is consuming too many calories as you say.
Obesity is a bigger problem in the US than in most other places, and the US is also the place where it's basically impossible to avoid HFCS. Americans as a whole eat too much... correlation is not causation, but if it's shown that HFCS makes you feel less full so you eat more, then that *is* causation and is way beyond "micromanagement".
Has anyone actually tested this (surely there must be some way to make clean glucose and fructose and compare their impact to commercial HFCS.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Trouble is...HFCS is in fucking everything..
Just try to find something as simple as a loaf of bread, or salad dressing without HFCS in it.
When I started reading labels, trying to cut carbs on the few processed foodstuff I do buy...I was amazed to find how pervasive that shit is in everything out there...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Without going into the specific pathway, I was referring to the fact that its hydrolysis products are easily utilized in either gluconeogenesis or further metabolized and enter the TCA cycle.
All fructose is processed by the liver in the same way as alcohol. That includes fruit juice.
All this changes in the presence of fiber. If you eat a piece of fresh fruit, the fiber in the fruit changes the way the fructose from the fruit is absorbed so it's not such a huge shock to the liver.
Fruit juice != fruit. Drinking a tall glass of orange juice is the equivalent of eating 6~8 oranges, but without the fibers. Your liver treats the massive sugar dump much differently than eating the equivalent # of [fruit].
The FDA wants to toss fruit juices into the same category of "bad" drinks as sugar laden sodas.
Exactly true, and yet millions of (nutritionally) uneducated mothers and/or fathers insist that their children drink plenty of juice (most of which is probably only 10% real fruit juice to begin with), instead of soda... because it's "healthy".
/. before), the title of which appealed to desire to be more of a man than I saw in the mirror at the time. The price of the book was less than a night at the local watering hole, so I went for it. When it arrived, first I thumbed through it. There was a lot of *common sense* stuff in there that just hadn't occurred to me before. So, I went back and READ it. Many an a-ha moment. Then I went back again and applied it. Now, at the risk of sounding like a braggart, I'm one of the most fit guys in the office. People are constantly asking for, and then either disregarding or outright refuting my advice. The result is, they're still fat, and I'm still not.
I won't go off on my usual rant about the terrible food pyramid we've been brainwashed with since the 60s ("eat a shitload of bread, but NO FATS!"), but the bigger problem I'm seeing every day is just an utter ignorance about what people put into their body, or an unwillingness to try something different.
"It says LEAN Cuisine on the box! That means I'll lose weight by eating it."
My dad taught me something when I was younger, probably without even meaning to... if you can't pronounce all the ingredients, you shouldn't eat it. Of course, as a kid, I ignored that advice and just ate whatever tasted good. My mother did her best, but she grew up in an Italian household, which means a lot of pasta and other starches. When she went back to work, the fridge was filled with microwaveable "food", that I could nuke whenever I thought I was hungry. Guess who was a fat kid who sucked at sports, couldn't keep up with friends when there was running, biking, climbing, or jumping was involved? Guess who grew up to be a fat adult who tried all the same shit (pills, "diet" meals, "magic" exercise apparatus, etc.) as many other fat people, with the same results... still fat.
It took a combination of a rough period in my life, combined with pure dumb luck... I was really low and, rather than drown myself in booze, I decided that I'd had enough, and that it was time to work on me. I got an email from a major men's magazine, offering a 30-day free trial of a book (which I've shilled on
Bottom line is, there's no magic pill, there's no silver bullet, there's really no secret. Back in the caveman days, right up to a half century ago, you almost had to try to get fat. Now, the food manufacturers (think about that phrase for a moment) are pumping chemicals into their products to make them taste better, cheaper. When I was a kid, McDonald's was a once-in-a-while treat. Now it's considered by many to be a viable option for all three major meals. People get in their car and drive to the store a block away. Hell, I see parents put their kids in the van and drive TO THE END OF THE DRIVEWAY to wait for the bus. People would rather wait in their car for 20 minutes in the Dunkin' Donuts drive through than park, get out, and be in and out of the place in 2 minutes. Schools have dropped gym class to save money and make more time for standardized tests. My oldest son tells me they don't really
The point is that glycolysis and fructolysis both yield a relatively insignificant amount of ATP, not enough to provide enough for normal cell function. Their metabolites are basically the same though, and enter the TCA cycle and then undergo electron transport in the mitochondria, in an identical manner, yielding 16 times as much ATP as the original 6 carbon sugar hydrolysis. Their breakdown pathways, while slightly different (and if you want to be REALLY technical, hexokinase CAN phosphorylate fructose in the same way it acts on glucose, and then it does follow the glycolytic pathway, identically from that step forward), are very, very similar, involving many of the same enzymes, as opposed to protein or fatty acid metabolism.