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Sugar and Corn syrup in the diet.


mistermack

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This came up in another thread. 

The documentary below is pretty self explanatory, but it's an hour long. The subject of High Fructose Corn Syrup is getting mentioned more and more in health publications, and the overall opinion is that it's one of the worst things that we eat, followed closely by table sugar from sugar beet. 

The documentary I'm posting here is actually quite entertaining, as well as interesting, so I can recommend watching it right through, if you have the time. 

Barring that, a quick google produces a wealth of info, almost all of it critical, of the High Fructose Corn Syrup that most of us are eating without knowing it. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=high+fructose+corn+syrup&oq=High+fructose+corn+syrup&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l3j69i60l2.10603j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8  

 

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Lustig and others have talked about health implications, but it is not because HFC is something specifically toxic. Despite the name, HFC contains about equal amount of fructose and glucose. However, Lustig's research mostly implicates the fructose with adverse health outcomes. However, it is important to note that while potential pathways of disease have been uncovered, it is not fully established whether it is really down to the type of sugar. The reason is that ultimately the various sugars are not consumed in isolation and due to overall complexity of nutritional biochemistry, it is difficult to clearly isolate the functions leading to adverse outcomes (on top we can add contributions of lifestyle, microbiota and other aspects and it becomes a mess). 

What we can state rather clearly, however, is that we consume too much sugar in total. And of course the addition of HFC in all types of products really amps up the overall carbohydrate count. There is little (disputed) evidence just switching the type of sugar with similar composition (say sucrose) but consuming equivalent amounts would be safer. 

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6 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Lustig and others have talked about health implications, but it is not because HFC is something specifically toxic. Despite the name, HFC contains about equal amount of fructose and glucose. However, Lustig's research mostly implicates the fructose with adverse health outcomes. However, it is important to note that while potential pathways of disease have been uncovered, it is not fully established whether it is really down to the type of sugar. The reason is that ultimately the various sugars are not consumed in isolation and due to overall complexity of nutritional biochemistry, it is difficult to clearly isolate the functions leading to adverse outcomes (on top we can add contributions of lifestyle, microbiota and other aspects and it becomes a mess). 

What we can state rather clearly, however, is that we consume too much sugar in total. And of course the addition of HFC in all types of products really amps up the overall carbohydrate count. There is little (disputed) evidence just switching the type of sugar with similar composition (say sucrose) but consuming equivalent amounts would be safer. 

Is it fructose that's implicated in visceral fat deposition?

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2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Is it fructose that's implicated in visceral fat deposition?

It is, and there is good reason to think so. However, other researchers who look at the matter from a holistic energy balance view (Rippe was one of them, I believe) have argued that the contribution of lipogenesis (i.e. de novo fat generation) are too small relative to say, daily fat intake. 

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  • 3 months later...
On ‎10‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 7:42 PM, CharonY said:

 

What we can state rather clearly, however, is that we consume too much sugar in total. And of course the addition of HFC in all types of products really amps up the overall carbohydrate count. There is little (disputed) evidence just switching the type of sugar with similar composition (say sucrose) but consuming equivalent amounts would be safer. 

Exactly.

Sugar cane & sugar beets make equal parts of fructose and glucose and combine them to make sucrose ("table sugar"), while corn makes 55% fructose and 45% glucose and doesn't combine them into a disaccharide. It's economically advantageous for may manufacturers to use the corn sugar compared to sucrose. We quickly turn sucrose into 50% glucose/50% fructose.

Hexose isomerase facilitates the conversion of fructose to glucose intracellularly. It doesn't even require an energy of activation and can be considered a spontaneous reaction.

Where we put on additional fat stores is influenced to a great deal by hormones/genetics. Those who tend to have increased lipogenesis/ increased storage of fat in the pre-abdominal area tend to be the ones with Metabolic Syndrome (elevated chol, decreased insulin sensitivity,  abd obesity, increased risk of CAD) so it's difficult to say that specifically fructose  contributes to that or merely the total carb load.

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