High Fructose Corn Syrup Dangers

High fructose corn syrup is one of the most insidious substances around in America today. It is estimated that fully one quarter of the calories consumed by adolescents today comes from sodas, fruit juices, or pre-sweetened drinks.

Most people don’t count those calories in their daily food intake, because they are hydration and don’t make anyone feel full after consuming them. Therefore they take in far more calories than they realize.

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“It isn’t that fructose itself is bad -- it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons it is so damaging:

1. Your body metabolizes it in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.

2. People are consuming it in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of HFCS.

Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to High Fructose Corn Syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s also about 20 times sweeter than table sugar.

This switch drastically altered the average American diet.

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS. The average Westerner consumes a staggering 142 pounds a year of sugar! And the very products most people rely on to lose weight -- the low-fat diet foods -- are often the ones highest in fructose.

Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from these processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all.”

The Differences In How Sugars Are Metabolized

“After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.

Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.

The fatty acids created during its metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.

Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, it converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store.

Glucose does not do this. When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming High Fructose Corn Syrup is essentially consuming fat!

The metabolism of it by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.

Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

The bottom line is: HFCS leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome -- not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.”

High Fructose corn Syrup Is Everywhere

In response to the growing body of scientific studies showing the dangers of HFCS, the Corn Refiner’s Association launched a series of ads saying that it was fine to have HFCS “in moderation”. Even if you chose to believe them, how in the world do you get it “in moderation”? It is everywhere!

If you choose to eat processed foods of any kind, you are going to have to start reading labels. It is in almost all drinks of any kind, (soda, pre-sweetened, energy, or fruit ones), candy, cookies, cakes, (almost all baked goods), some dairy products (yogurt), canned fruits and vegetables, ice cream, jams, jellies and syrups, some meats (especially Lunchables brand), sauces, soups, crackers, breads, cereals and worst of all in my opinion, cough medicine.

By the way, any dark colas that you drink also have phosphoric acid in them, which when combined with sugar makes them very acidic. Calcium is what the body uses to neutralize this acidity and when you don't take in enough from food, the body will leach it from your bones. Besides the high fructose corn syrup, this is another reason to avoid sodas.

If you eat out in any restaurant, from fast food to high end, you are going to be eating GMOs, HFCS, or pesticide laden food. Why? Because they are cheaper. Restaurants have to do this in order to make a profit.

Grocery stores are a little better, in that they give you a choice, but most of their products also have the above items, especially processed ones. That’s why you have to prepare your own food at home if you want optimum health.

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