On high-fructose corn syrup

MANILA, Philippines - Eating a lot of processed foods and soft drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can make you more susceptible to diabetes.

This comes from Michael Goran, Ph.D., co-director of the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who said the incidence of diabetes appears to be higher in countries where HFCS is combined with the above. In contrast, lower rates of diabetes were observed in countries that did not use this artificial sweetener. 

Researchers arrived at this conclusion after they compared the availability of HFCS to diabetes rates in 43 countries. Little or no HFCS was found in the food supply in about half of the countries they studied while in the other 20 countries, the use of this sweetener ranged from about a pound per person yearly in Germany to about 55 pounds yearly per person in the United States.

“The researchers found that countries using HFCS had rates of diabetes that were about 20 percent higher than countries that did not mix the sweetener into foods. Those differences remained even after researchers took into account data for differences in body size, population and wealth,” according to Brenda Goodman MA of Web MD.

In an effort to explain the high diabetes rates in countries where HFCS is used, the researchers also took into account whether the people there were simply eating more sugar or more total calories. But this was not the case. 

“There were no overall differences in total sugars or total calories between countries that did and did not use HFCS, suggesting that there’s an independent relationship between HFCS and diabetes,” Goodman reported. The study was published in the journal Global Health.

The study, however, was questioned by Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, who said that it is too early to point an accusing finger at HFCS alone since it is similar to table sugar. Both contain fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (the sugar the body uses for energy found in sugary and starchy foods). Both are the same nutritionally and can be bad for health when consumed in excessive amounts.

“Just because an ingredient is available in a nation’s diet does not mean it is uniquely the cause of a disease. There is broad scientific consensus that table sugar and HFCS are nutritionally and metabolically equivalent. It is, therefore, highly dubious — without any human studies demonstrating a meaningful nutritional difference between HFCS and sugar — to point an accusatory finger at one and not the other,” she added.

But Goran thinks otherwise. While the two are almost similar, he said there are studies that show that the body handles fructose differently than glucose. All sugar — whether white sugar, honey or brown sugar — is made up of half fructose and half glucose. In HFCS, the percentage of fructose varies from 42 to 55 percent. A study published in the journal Obesity showed that it may even be as high as 47 to 65 percent. This, he said, may explain why HFCS is more dangerous.