High Fructose Corn Syrup Research Paid For By HFCS Industry
CBS says that they took a look at the research cited by the marketing campaign from the Corn Refiners Association -- which features "people-in-the-know" rolling their eyes and scoffing at befuddled anti-corn-syrup zealots -- and realized that "three were sponsored by groups that stand to profit from research that promotes HFCS. Two were never published so they’re funding sources are unclear. And one was sponsored by a Dutch foundation that represents the interests of the sugar industry."
CBS says that research has shown that the outcome of studies seems to be influenced by who is paying for the study...
Last year, research from the Children’s Hospital Boston suggested that nutrition research, like medical and tobacco research, can be influenced when industry funds the studies. It showed that when studies were sponsored exclusively by food/drinks companies, the conclusions were four to eight times more likely to be favorable to the sponsoring company.
So, is corn syrup bad for you? Experts do not agree, but the general consensus is that while it may not be worse for you than sugar -- it's not exactly good for you either.
Sweetner Controversy Grows [CBS] (Thanks, j h5279!)
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Whether or not it's true that HFCS blocks the signal to your brain that says "you're full", I notice that I eat much less and feel satisfied sooner when I avoid soda with my meal. I'll occasionally have a cane sugar-sweetened soda, but I usually can't finish the whole thing (unlike HFCS-sweetened sodas).
I know this will probably get repeated a lot(as it tends to be repeated), but a very small amount of almost anything probably isn't bad for you. The problem is that HFCS is in EVERYTHING, so there's no way to avoid it without abstaining from all processed foods. Which isn't such a bad idea, though one shunned by people that prefer convenience.
Next on CBS news: Is cyanide bad for you? One doctor says no!*
*sponsored by the Kevorkian cyanide company.
/Euthanasia: the other white meat!
I don't see a problem with this. Especially seeing as experts seem to disagree. Wouldn't this be true for most ads claiming 'research shows...'?
And expect more ads.
Not only is HFCS highly controversial (and nearly impossible to avoid if you purchase any kind of packaged food product), it is made from GMO corn.
The amounts of products with laboratory altered DNA we consume on a daily basis is huge, and there is nothing in place to track the possible risks or dangers.
How many Rx drugs (with extensive scrutiny and government approval) have killed thousands and end up being recalled years later? (Celebrex anyone?). With the food we ingest, the level of scrutiny is far lower, yet these high-tech foods are ingested in much greater quantity by a much larger percentage of the population.
We are living in a society where corporate & government interests trump pure & impartial science. Our health and our very lives hang in the balance.
Research shows that if you kill one baby every 3rd full moon, you will live a longer happier life than the non baby killers.
As an avid soda drinker, HFCS does not scare me, although I do try to stock up on as much non-HFCS soda as I can find only because they do taste better. (Kosher Coke, where are you?)
@xredgambit: Well, I don't know about the longer part, but the happier part makes total sense.
Killing babies is just plain fun!
I've tried cutting HFCS out of my diet entirely. After a while you lose the craving and taste for soda. Soda is definitely a self reinforcing addition.
@Ftp1423: I try and cook as much for myself as possible, and even got to the point that I don't drink juice from concentrate- but it's literally everywhere. Last week, i thought I tasted it in my water. I drank about a gallon before I thought it might be HCFS.
I read recently about a study done by the University of Texas -- results have lead to the conclusion that our bodies process fructose into fat more quickly than it does glucose. So yeah, high-fructose *anything* is likely to lead to more weight gain. And like Paper said, it's so much harder to consume anything 'in moderation' when it's freakin' *everywhere*.
@Ftp1423:
I gave up caffiene some years ago when it got to the point that, if I didn't have some before 10 am, I would have a headache all day. I finally said enough and it was a week of headaches and being thirsty no matter how much I drank. After that, I felt better (and spent way less on soda).
@Clold: Don't be obnoxious. As it says in the comment code, if a typo or error is made, email the editor. Posting in comments to call attention to yourself is not necessary.
@SkokieGuy: How many "natural and normal" foods (even though eaten by millions of others for hundreds of years) have killed thousands of people? How many people have not died because of modified food(I direct you to the man who won the Nobel prize for being credited as saving a billion lives due to the modified grains he helped develop)?
I had "mexican" coke and it was good. I'm a pepsi guy personally.
But they need to have a Cane sugar version of the soda. Maybe at a premium. Really, I'd pay extra for a made with real sugar version of a soda. Or else HFCS free sodas.
Like Jones soda. I love them and there cane sugar only. Plus we can use the corn for fuel, not soda.
And in all reality, this would be as close to "natural only food" status. I love me some chemicals.
Is there a way for an industry or company to sponsor a study and not get flack for it?
I hate HFCS as much as the next guy, but I'm skeptical of the skeptics that say that funded research is biased.
IMO, ALL research is biased. As long as the data is available, each person can make their own conclusion. So how can companies that have a vested interest fund a study with full disclosure?
I try to avoid HFCS not out of any health-related reason (I don't think that GM crops are necessarily bad, nor do I buy into the idea that it somehow magically makes you hungrier), but rather as a political matter. I strongly disagree with the subsidies that make widespread use of HFCS economical, and believe that the farm land devoted to this artificially profitable crop might be better used otherwise.
The ads aren't false actually. They say "in moderation". Which is key to everything. Like it has been said above, its in everything and near impossible to avoid without conscious effort!
FAIL!
The problem with HFCS isn't that it doesn't send a signal to your brain that you are full. Sugar doesn't do that either.
The problem is that HFCS is a refined fructose. Not all sugars are processed the same way in the body.
Glucose is metabolized by every cell in the body. Fructose is processed only by the liver, and that's the problem.
Fructose is corn that's boiled down to get a syrup that's just the corn's sugar. It's incredibly condensed and extremely sweet.
The liver gets bombarded by hfcs and caused all kinds of problems. Some of the problems are it interferes with the body's absorption of minerals. It raises cholesterol. It interferes with white blood cells and harms the immune system. But worst of all, HFCS makes the body less reactive to insulin, causing type 2 diabetes. The pancreas has to create more insulin to get the same effect and lower the body's level of blood sugar. HFCS essentially burns out the body's ability to use and react to insulin. And when the pancreas has to kick into overdrive to keep pumping out more insulin all the time, it can cause problems with insulin production and with the pancreas itself. It's a giant catch 22. Less sensitivity to insulin causes the blood sugar to not be metabolized and is instead stored as fat. People who eat a diet high in HFCS become obese, which is exactly what is happening in the U.S. HFCS is in almost everything. Start reading labels. Until this past year it was almost impossible to buy bread without HFCS in it. Now there are a small handful of brands. Frozen foods, pop, prepared foods, processed foods, they all have HFCS in them.
HFCS should be banned across the world.
The Corn Refiners Association released another commercial this week targeted at moms. The association says it's not interested in driving up consumption of HFCS.
Who believes this shit? Corn Refiners Association People, are you saying you're not in the business of selling your product, but will aggressively defend it anyway? Yeah, it's just a pride thing, sure.
@Paper: I totally agree. I don't mind eating small amounts of HFCS - but I can't just eat small amounts without cutting all processed foods out of my diet. I've already completely cut out soda and I don't miss it one bit. But some of my favorite candies and juices have HFCS in them, not to mention all the random prepackaged foods you find it in (baby carrots???).
Here's a question that interests me: is anyone allergic to that stuff? And how do they avoid it?
MEG: You are confusing TWO DIFFERENT things here: Corn Syrup and HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS). No one has anything bad to say about corn syrup. HFCS, on the other hand, has incredibly strong correlation with the obesity epidemic. (Amazing, for example, how people drank 6 oz Cokes before HFCS, but 44 oz Cokes since.)
@Consumerist-Moderator-Roz: I don't care about attention - I care that these posts are going up without proper editing. It's an important concern - if simple English usage isn't being verified, are the facts behind the posts being?
I'm convinced that its HFCS that has caused the obesity epidemic in this country. This is why we are overweight and most other countries are not. This is why we are overweight in the 21st century, when we weren't (at least as much) 30 years ago. It really is in everything and difficult to buy without it. One really has to go back to cooking from scratch to try and limit HFCS in your food.
Here's my take: I don't care about what HFCS does or does not do to my body. Cane sugar tastes better than HFCS, period. Cane sugar soda is fantastic as is homemade applesauce with cane sugar. Everything is better with cane sugar. My beef is that everything WOULD be made with cane sugar if the Govenrment didn't subsidize corn and put tariffs on sugar. The Government is making things less tasty, damnit! That should be the #1 issues in the election.
One would have to be pretty dim (or suicidal) to be eating much of what is in the standard US citizens average diet.
The vast high incidence of obesity and a staggering range of cancers, far in excess of anywhere else in the world, keeps me contentedly on a diet of primarily fresh vegetables and fresh fruit.
I don't eat anything with HFCS - or for that matter, any sugars, sweeteners, or MSG, or any of the clearly toxic combinations that pass for 'food' in America.
Most US food is greasy carcinogenic sludge - it may look pretty, sure - and may taste to the undeveloped palate like something 'tasty' - but thats just the chemical art of food technologists in action.
@Paper: That's the real problem -- it literally is in everything. I'm surprised they haven't tried spraying it on fresh produce from crop-dusters. Apparently Americans will not eat food that has not been artificially sweetened.
@Clold: Equating spelling mistakes with bad factual content is fallacious to say the least. The editors do their best to vet articles, but this is the web, and grammar and spelling errors are not always caught, even by the best of editors. I know from personal experience.
@SkokieGuy: Well, chum, thankfully, the free market will purge errant companies - it's magic! Pesky rules, regulations and accurate labeling - who needs 'em?
In fact, I'll bet $700 billion on it!
Those trying to avoid it by cutting out soda/juices have to realize that it comes in a powdered form as well. I noticed that it is included in salad-dressing mix powders, soup mixes, etc, as well, not just in liquid products. You'll find it in bread, in canned vegetables, even in peanut butter.
@Clold: That's typically why they post a link to the article. This is a blog not a research agency/firm. They just collect relevant articles and post a comment + reference and let us go at it. Sometimes they have typos.
@AmericaTheBrave: As someone who is now facing the problem of being seriously overwieght for the first time in his life, and who has a family history of diabetes, this is the kind of stuff that needs to be heard.
Is funding for research from those who stand to profit from favorable research results impossible to avoid?
Who besides those who develope and produce a product would give enough of a damn about a product to pay someone else to research it? How much corn syrup research would be done if the corn syrup companies didn't pay to research it? The only other company with a financial interest in researching corn syrup is equally or more so biased, their competitors.
HFCS: The Browning Reaction.
"The browning reaction occurs when certain carb molecules bind with proteins and cause aging. It's also called 'glycation', 'glycosylation', and sometimes the Maillard reaction. It changes the structure of enzymes and other proteins, resulting in tissue and organ damage (and it's suspected in organ damage particularly in diabetics)."
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, the browning reaction occurs with any sugar, but with fructose it happens seven times faster than it does with glucose.
HFCS starts out as cornstarch, which is chemically or enzymatically degraded to glucose (and some short polymers of glucose). Another enzyme is then used to convert varying fractions of glucose into fructose. What amazes me is that even with all this processing, HFCS is still cheaper to make than good ole sugar.
I rarely drink soft drinks but when I do I make sure it's one that uses 100% cane sugar for sweetening like Hansen's.
I'm noticing a lot more people complaining of adverse reactions to HFCE lately, my mom included. They aren't allergic to corn and they're not diabetic or anything, they just get headaches and sometimes stomach aches from it. Since I'm no medical researcher I don't know what that exactly means, but it's worth remembering. Maybe it's the chemical processing or something.
Even if HFCS is "only" as bad for one as sugar; that possibility alone should make people limit their HFCS consumption. What a great excuse to cut down on all sugary food!
Not that it isn't okay to indulge every once in a while. Lord knows what I would do without the very occasional HFCS-filled or sugary treat.
@failurate: Consumer groups, if they have the money. They have their biases too, though. Technically, you could call what CBS did research. It cost them to do it, albeit relatively little, and their bias is to draw in an audience with sensation and scandal.
What if the HFCS industry sponsored 10 studies, but 9 of them found results that showed HFCS had obvious negative health consequences? You think they might push to have the one positive study published, while keeping the other 9 under wraps? If you make your own conclusions on the basis of this one study, your conclusions are wrong, but you'll never know it.
@SkokieGuy: How many Rx drugs (with extensive scrutiny and government approval) have killed thousands and end up being recalled years later?
I'm not taking any position on HFCS, but at the same time, how many products have been demonized by natural foods types that aren't actually bad for you? (Gluten, rBST, cloned foods, etc)
I wouldn't say that corporate and government interests are keeping down science. If a fair and impartial study came out tomorrow that said that GM foods weren't worse for you than non-GM foods, would you believe it or dismiss it as corporate whitewashing? And besides, Whole Foods and similar retailers (including farmers' markets) make a killing on the other side of the controversy by providing things like gluten-free food and charging a huge markup for it.
If you want to take a moral stance, that's fine. GM foods can have effects on the surrounding environment, and hormones may not make a cow's life any better, but let's not assume ill effects on humans when they haven't been proven.
@mike: There actually is. Funding isn't the problem. It's when these industry-funded studies bypass the peer-reviewed, academic-run process that credible, science-based studies use that the red flags go up.
Another part of the process is, as you say, releasing not only the raw data, but the methodology of gathering and interpreting the data. It can't be published (reputably) without it. The problem with just the data, however, is that each person can't reliably sift thru the data - you need the training for how to do it correctly. But peers can - and gleefully do - review each others' work. It's part of the Scientific Method: built-in incentives to rigorously cross-check is built into the process. So your concerns are met! :)
The point of these non-scientific studies, of course, is to cloud the debate AND to make lay people distrust ALL studies. Either one is a win, from their perspective.
Not all studies are bad: just hack studies. Which this appears to be.
@Quietly: Keep in mind that the corn that makes HFCS contains modified DNA. One example is that the corn has genes inserted making it herbacide / pesticide resistant. (This allows farmers to more cheaply spray their fields to reduce weeds and pests, not having to worry if the chemicals get on the corn plants, it won't kill them).
Since HFCS is highly concentrated, so is any pesticide residue and so is the altered genes. Your mother could easily be getting sick from ingesting these items. Also, if your mother takes medications (or herbs or supplements, what if the gene that reduces the plant's suseptibility to herbicides and pesticides interacts with her meds?
@AmericaTheBrave: I used to drink juice from concentrate all the time to avoid sugar. Then I got educated, read the labels and had to cross off nearly every juice off my list except for OJ, grape and apple juice. Everything else is larded up with HFCS.
(sob) Miss my cranberry juice and lemon/limeaid the most. :(
I can see a lot of busy moms making the same mistake as I did, which is a shame.
@uberbucket: Uh, the Malliard reaction occurs when the substance in question is applied to high heat (about 310° F). This doesn't occur in the body. Wiki source
@Paper: And not only just convenience but for people who have limited abilities to get to the grocery store on a daily basis. When I didn't have a car and was getting minimum wage, I could only get out to the store a) when I could get a ride and b) when I got paid. That meant every few weeks. I had to buy food that would last until the next time I could get to the store.
Now that I make a bit more money I'm able to buy better quality food. I still don't have a car, though. So I'm still a weekly shopper and fresh food is only around the first couple of days after my trip to the store.
I'm a health researcher at the NIH in Bethesda and when I first saw these advertisements I decided to do a little literature research of my own.
From what I have read it seems that HFSC is ok in moderation (like they say), but the problem is that HFSC seems to be put it into just about everything we eat (which they ignore).
Stay away from sugary foods and eat healthy is always the best bet.
The problems with corn go deeper than just HFCS. I encourage everyone to read "The Omnivores Dilemma", a great book about everything related to corn. Or if reading isn't your thing, rent the movie "King Corn", a documentary based on the book.
I try not to consume raw high fructose corn syrup, tastes bad.