Wanna gain weight? Try using HFCS instead of sugar.

[no1_vern]

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain

Posted March 22, 2010; 10:00 a.m.

by Hilary Parker

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: 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.

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "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."

As if you didn't already know.

[Epidemic]

interesting stuff. I went out looking around and found that as of 2008 AMA still said there was no difference even in light of a princeton study.

But for slight difference in fructose vs glucose levels Sugar and HFCS are very similar.


Does this study indicate what is chemically different about the two products?


The article I read with the ama cited was very vague stating that glucose and fructose levels were only slightly different.


Of course one is a liquid and one is a crystal so My guess is that there is some difference

[Epidemic]

High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are both compounds that contain the simple sugars fructose and glucose, but there at least two clear differences between them. First, sucrose is composed of equal amounts of the two simple sugars -- it is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose -- but the typical high-fructose corn syrup used in this study features a slightly imbalanced ratio, containing 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. Larger sugar molecules called higher saccharides make up the remaining 3 percent of the sweetener. Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.

I guess the bound vs unbound may have something to do with absorbtion

[Chuckiechan]

I glad someone is studying this. There has been suspicions for years that HFCS leads to more obesity than regular sugar.

Which is fine and dandy, but good luck trying to find a commercial product that is sweet that doesn't have it.

[surreal]

Good luck finding much of any product that doesn't have it in it. I was reading the ingredients on some smoked sausage yesterday- it was beef, pork, chicken, HFCS. I got mad and threw it down.

[Epidemic]

does anyone have a mechanism for this.

Is it the free glucose that is bad or the free fructose?


Fruit is high in fructose and we don't hear claims of obesity associated with fruit.


Free fructose is high in fruit so why is HFCS a problem?



Manufactured or natural if a chemical is a chemical, should it not have the same effects on the body?

So how does HFCS do it? I will even say it does do it because of the tests on rats but does anyone know how it does it?