High-Fructose Corn Syrup Could Make You Obese

By Margarita Nahapetyan

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may significantly increase weight gain and lead to other problems as well, a team of researchers at Princeton University has found.

Specifically, HFCS, or a cheap sweetener, is associated with an increase of abdominal body fat which leads to a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides, therefore causing more weight gain than plain table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake is the same.

Chemically, high-fructose corn syrup is a combination of fructose and glucose, the two components of regular table sugar (sucrose). However, unlike in table sugar, these two components are not chemically linked, and the fructose is slightly excessed instead of the 50/50 mix that can be found in sucrose. These differences do not appear to be very significant in the grand scheme of things, but there has been a consistent number of studies demonstrating that the body responds in different ways to sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, including indications of different fat metabolism and responses to insulin. There was one idea suggesting that fructose does not cause the same sense of satisfaction that glucose does, meaning that people are less likely to stop eating after ingesting a certain amount of calories.

Naturally, fructose is present in fruits and in combination with the fiber, and other nutrients in fruit, it is fine to consume in moderation. Fructose that was converted from glucose was not considered a normal part of the human diet until the 70's when high-fructose corn syrup became the preferred and most affordable sweetener after sugar prices skyrocketed.

In a simple new study that involved rats, scientists were able to demonstrate that the animals given the same amount of calories of either table sugar or high fructose corn syrup (which is manufactured from the simple corn syrup we purchase at the store), at the end had significantly different rates of obesity.

Scientists found that the rats that were fed a diet with sucrose continued to stay healthy. In contrast, the animals that ate a diet with HFCS, experienced immediate weight gain, most of it concentrated in the abdomen. This weight gain corresponds with the gains seen in the American population since high-fructose corn syrup became a part of almost every processed food that is today on the market. In addition, the experts found that as the animals consumed an extended diet including HFCS, they demonstrated similar health problems to those in people.

In the study experiment, the corn syrup in the water was at half the concentration as that of corn syrup in popular soft drinks, whereas the amount of sucrose was at the normal concentration found in the same type of beverages.

The results of the study were reported online on March 18, 2010 in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.