HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP ("HFCS")
A TOXIC KILLER
tba, covers the key points.
THE BOTTOMLINE
High fructose corn syrup is a silent killer, a toxic, a poison to our body.
To not have a toxic load, we should have less than 100 calories from fructose for women daily, 150 for men. A can of soda has around 150 by itself.
ADDICTIVE, CAUSING MORE AND MORE CONSUMPTION
Sugar hits the brain in the same place that cocaine does - in the pleasure center, rewarding us with dopamine which makes us feel good - for the moment.
Cocaine, high fructose corn syrup (call it HFCS), and ethanol (alcohol) all hit us in a similar fashion. We are using these substances to give us a euphoric effect.
While all three of these produce future problems, we will focus here primarily on HFCS, with a few comments on ethanol (which is fermented from sugar).
HOW THEY ARE PROCESSED BY THE BODY
Glucose is mostly fed to the cells before it hits the liver, where a small amount is processed into various substances with a little left in the liver, but which can later be used up by hormones to be turned to energy (epinephrine and another one).
Ethanol has a problem in that it has a much bigger retention rate (less usability by the body for energy) and a few other effects on the liver. If there is too much, we develop cirrhosis of the liver, which is very, very serious (besides alcohol killing brain cells). But most people think there is no problem since they don't consume so much that they will destroy their liver. But this is what is called a "duh" logic problem. If too much of it is toxic, then that must mean it is a toxic substance. We just don't notice the more subtle effects. And we continue to use it to produce a euphoric effect. But the list of side effects is considerable, from depression (as ethanol also gets into the brain, while HFCS doesn't) to high blood pressure to cardiovascular disease. Yet we continue to ignore the evidence.
But with HFCS we seem to be largely oblivious of what happens, where we simply assume that the only effect is that it has calories, which, if we eat too much, will make us fat.
But the evidence and the studies indicate that there are far greater effects, hurting our bodies in 8 of the 12 ways that ethanol does.
However, the government tends to try to restrict the use of ethanol, while doing nothing with regard to HFCS.
HFCS does not "metabolize" in the efficient way that glucose does. About 30% of it is turned into fat, the worst kind - and it produced triglycerides and "dense" small LDL, which is the kind that can get under the nicks and plaque in the blood vessels and create hardening of the arteries and produce heart attacks. Regular LDL is "fluffy" and larger and won't fit under anything, simply bouncing about, relatively harmlessly.
THE REGULATORY SYSTEM IN THE BODY
We have evolved to have a system that detects "enough" glucose in the blood, to where the mind has us shut it off so it won't do damage (as excess of almost anything will do). Unlike glucose, fructose does not suppress Grhelin - which together with leptin tend to tell us when we are satiated. Grhelin and leptin are part of the body's way of keeping things in balance - in homeostasis - so that the body can function well.
HFCS is a foreign substance that cannot be detected nor metabolized by that system, so the detector still thinks it is starving, so it continues to give the go ahead to consume more. And, of course, we're happy to do that since the sweetness is pleasing to us.
In fact we've risen to the point where 15% of an adolescent's calories come from fructose - and where 6 month old babies are becoming obese (Similac that they feed babies is over half sugar...).
LOTS OF IT IS USED
Fructose is sweeter than glucose plus it is very cheap, so the natural tendency is to use more of it - with plenty of demand for making things sweeter, even putting it in bread, yogurt, etc. and etc.!
In the caveman days, sweetness was a sign of a food being safe AND we had very little fruit available. Of course, fruit has lots of fiber in it, so we metabolize the sweetness differently, with less of the glucose hitting us all at once. Fiber is helpful as a nutrient with many positive effects. The caveman ate about 200 -300 grams/day, while we are down to 12(!). Fiber is important because it slows down absorption so the body doesn't get bombarded and have to go into emergency mode to process all the big shock from too much sugar at once.
Fructose causes 7 times the AGEs than glucose (advanced glated end products - inflammatory, cross linking that causes intracellular damage and apoptosis (cells dying), reduced muscle function, and are a factor in aging also...)
Insulin takes glucose and stores away the unused part of it into non-toxic fat, to be used at a later time, from a very accessible form. (Glucose = the energy of life.)
But a large portion (30%) of HFCS goes directly into fat - largely "inside" fat around the organs, harmful toxic fat - which logically you'd expect would be harmful - and it is!
HFSC is the biggest cause of the big fat problem and the big health problems.
HFCS has all these effects:
1. Metabolic syndrome (aka Syndrome X) which cause retention of extra wieigh, cravings, shortens our lives and cause us to lose our memory, create inflammation, creates a form of exhaustion that undermines our lives, causes insulin resistance and diabetes, elevated cortisol, etc. and etc. (See the discussion about it in The Effects Of Stress, as it is one of the effects of stress besides the effect of HFCS.)
2. If you limit sugar, it reduces chances of cancer and cancer growth.
3. Causes cardiovascular disease, with dense LDL's which are what causes most of the problem (and if trigycerides are high it is hugely predictive of heart attacks and death.
4. Obesity and all of its harmful effects.
5. Diabetes II
Go back up to the top and note "The Bottomline". Fairly obvious, but how many people will do anything about it. It's a flippin' emergency!
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WHY IS EXERCISE SO IMPORTANT FOR OBESITY?
People think it is because of the calories burnt, but that effect is minor and involves very few calories - requiring 10 hours of exercise to offset a Big Mac. What it does do for the obese is it reduces stress which then reduces appetite, so there is less food intake. It also makes the TCA cycle run faster, detoxifying fructose and improving hepatic insulin sensitivity. Lack of insulin sensitivity means that the body does not have the ability to regulate sugar in the blood stream (by storing it away).
