High Fructose Corn Syrup

Another academic study is blaming high-fructose corn syrup for some of Americans' health issues. The latest comes from UCLA, where researchers contend that fructose, which occurs both naturally in fruits and vegetables but is also an additive, damages brain cells.

Their research also links the sweetener to diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and ADH. The scientists reached their conclusions after conducting a series of experiments involving laboratory animals. They published their results in The Lancet, a medical journal.

In recent months attention has focused on Americans' consumption of sweetened foods and beverages as a contributor to rising obesity rates. In 2013, California considered mandating warning labels on products with high added sugar content.

A way to reverse the damage

This latest research came up with an antidote, of sorts. It found that when people consumed an omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, it seemed to reverse the damage triggered by fructose.

“DHA changes not just one or two genes; it seems to push the entire gene pattern back to normal, which is remarkable,” said Xia Yang, a senior author of the study and a UCLA assistant professor of integrative biology and physiology.

Brain cells produce some DHA on their own, but the amount is not large enough to help fight disease. Reinforcing natural DHA with foods high in the omega-3 provides adequate reinforcement.

Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and of integrative biology and physiology, says the finding simply reinforces the reason people need to eat the right food. Your body, he says, can't produce all the nutrients it needs – the rest has to come through diet.

Where to get DHA

Sources of DHA include walnuts, fruits, vegetables, wild salmon, and other fish.

High-fructose corn syrup is made from corn starch and is used in a wide variety of processed foods and beverages. The UCLA researchers cite a U.S. Department of Agriculture study which estimates that Americans consumed about 27 pounds of the sweetener in 2014.

While fruit also contains fructose, the researchers say it is less harmful, with the fiber in the fruit slowing the body's absorption of the sweetener. Fruit also contains nutrients that are beneficial to the brain.

“Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain,” said Gomez-Pinilla.

To ensure those effects are positive, he suggests avoiding sugary soft drinks, saving desserts for special occasions, and trying to reduce the overall amount of sugar and saturated fate in your diet.

Perhaps the mark of an affluent culture is one in which its citizens can be choosy about what they eat. In the U.S., we're beginning to be defined less by what we eat and more by the food we avoid.

Researchers at Cornell call it “food fear,” suggesting that a lot of information – and misinformation – about food is scaring consumers away from many types of food and ingredients. Their study looks at ways to correct what the authors see as misconceptions.

“MSG, gluten and high fructose corn syrup are just a few of the ingredients that have received a lot of negative attention in recent years,” said Aner Tal, post-doctoral researcher at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. “While some ingredient food fears are justified by objective evidence, others have unnecessarily damaged some industries.”

Avoiding gluten

Gluten may be a prime example. Some people – not a very significant number – have a condition called celiac disease that requires them to avoid gluten, a mix of natural proteins in some food that gives it a stretchable and elastic texture. It's primarily in wheat-based foods like bread and crackers.

To serve this rather small population food manufacturers began producing gluten-free products that have now become popular with consumers who do not have celiac disease, but who have nonetheless adopted a gluten-free diet.

This food trend is very prevalent in Los Angeles, which inspired comedian Jimmy Kimmel's humorous observation below.

False feeling

Harry Balzer, the head industry analyst at the NPD group, has said people who eliminate gluten from their diet without having celiac disease most likely do it from “a false feeling of wellness.” The Cornell researchers tend to agree and find this point of view extends to other foods and ingredients.

Their research focused on consumers who avoid specific ingredients and draws 4 key conclusions about these selective consumers:

• They are more likely to receive their information from the Internet rather than television;
• They had a desire to have their food-related opinions known by their friends or reference group;
• Feared ingredients mainly hurt evaluation of foods that they perceived as relatively healthy rather than of foods that they perceived as unhealthy; and
• Those with a fear of a specific ingredient may exaggerate and overweigh perceived risks.

Solid information

On the other hand, the research team found that when consumers were presented with solid information about an ingredient’s history, background, and general usage the fear dissipated. To arrive at this conclusion they asked participants to rate the healthfulness of Stevia, a natural sweetener.

Half of the participants were given historical and contextual information to read about the product and the remaining participants were not given anything to read. Those who received information about an ingredient’s history rated the product as healthier than those who did not

“Learn the science, history, and the process of how the ingredient is made,” said Brian Wansink, lead author and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. “You’ll be a smarter, savvier consumer if you do.”

General Mills touts its Nature Valley granola bars and "thins" as "natural" snacks but a class-action lawsuit says the snacks contain industrially-produced artificial ingredients such as high-fructose corn syrup, high-maltose corn syrup, and maltodextrin.

"Our Chewy Trail mix bars are made with delicious combinations of 100% natural ingredients like whole almonds, cranberries, peanuts, and pomegranate," is how the company describes Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix bars on labels.

The front of the package describes the product as "100% NATURAL," and a side panel notes that Nature Valley "is proud to be the official natural granola bar for" the U.S. Olympic Ski Team and the PGA golf tour. Yet the product contains high-maltose corn syrup and maltodextrin.

But according to the lawsuit, high-maltose corn syrup and maltodextrin are both produced by applying acids, enzymes, or acids and enzymes in sequence to corn starch, depolymerizing the starch to glucose and maltose. The acids or enzymes are then neutralized, removed, or deactivated, and the resulting product is then refined, purified, and concentrated.

Highly processed

"High maltose corn syrup and maltodextrin are highly processed, do not exist in nature, and not even under the most elastic possible definition could they be considered 'natural,'" said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, whose litigation department is acting as co-counsel in the suit.

The lawsuit was filed in United States District Court in the Northern District of California, on behalf of Amy McKendrick, a resource teacher from Kern County, Calif., and another California woman, both of whom sought out natural products on medical advice.

"My daughter's special diet requires that I select natural products and avoid artificial dyes, sweeteners, or additives—and I'm willing to pay a little bit more for products that are truly 'all natural,'" said McKendrick. "Who would assume that a '100% Natural' product from a company called Nature Valley would have these factory-refined ingredients?"

CSPI said it privately raised concerns with General Mills over Nature Valley "Natural" claims in July 2010. General Mills responded by indicating they would work to eliminate high-fructose corn syrup from the product line, CSPI said in a press release.  It added that while few, if any, Nature Valley products still contain high-fructose corn syrup, many still do contain high-maltose corn syrup and maltodextrin.

"Few companies would like to brag that their ingredients are 'fresh from the factory,' but that's exactly where high-maltose corn syrup and maltodextrin come from," said CSPI assistant director of litigation Seema Rattan. "General Mills is misleading consumers when it suggests otherwise."

The suit says Nature Valley's labeling and advertising is in violation of several California consumer protection laws, including the California Legal Remedies Act, the Unfair Competition Law, and the False Advertising Law. Besides CSPI's litigation unit, the San Francisco law firms of Baker Law, P.C., and Sherman Business Law are representing the consumers. Besides seeking certification to proceed as a class action, the plaintiffs seek to stop General Mills from making deceptive natural claims on Nature Valley products.

What's in a name? Plenty, if the name has anything to do with sugar. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has rejected a request by corn-refining giants to change the name of the widely used and widely despised food ingredient "high-fructose corn syrup" to "corn sugar." 

The sweetener is cheap and sweet, which is why it's widely used in snack foods, condiments and soft drinks. Critics, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, say those sugary snacks and drinks are contributing to the nation's obesity problem. Bloomberg's answer is to ban large sugary drinks.

Of course, changing the name won't make the sugar any less sweet.  Or any less fattening, for that matter. But it's a tried-and-try public relations gimmick: change the name of an offending product or substance and hope no one remembers. The Corn Refiners Association -- which includes such industry giants as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill Inc. -- has been trying to do just that for years. It formally sought the name change in a petition to the FDA in 2010.

Not enough

The FDA said the corny p.r. group didn't provide sufficient grounds for a name change. And besides, said the FDA, it defines sugar as "a solid, dried and crystallized food," while syrup is a "liquid food." High-fructose corn syrup is a liquid, it should be noted.

But not wanting to put all their corn in one bin, the Corn Refiners have been fighting on another front as well, just in case the name-change ploy went sour. the trade group has been running a series of controversial TV commercials, basically saying "sugar is sugar" and claiming "your body can't tell the difference" between high-fructose corn syrup and sugar.

This doesn't go over well with the sugar farmers, as you might suppose, and several of them filed a federal lawsuit against the fructose claims. A federal judge found the farmers showed "a reasonable probability of success on their argument that the statements are false" but the case is likely to remain solidly in the courts for a bit longer before it dissolves fully.

Enough already

The farmers argue that the fructose refiners are putting out false product claims, and hurting the natural sugar industry.

"Enough is enough," said sugar farmer attorney Mark Lanier. "Neither HFCS nor fructose is the same as sucrose, what consumers know as sugar, and has been a part of diets for more than 2,000 years."

"Consumers need the facts about how sweeteners differ chemically and how the body can tell the difference between them. The Sugar Association seeks to educate consumers and encourages the media and researchers to embrace a scientific dialogue based on facts and not scare tactics," Lanier said.

Too much already

But while the arguments about what's sugar and what's not rage on, the fact remains that -- whatever it is -- we're probably eating too much of it. 

"So many things have happened in our environment in the past fifty years, from a total increase in calories to a decrease in activity — it’s absurd to pin the entire obesity problem on a single food such as fructose or even sugar consumption as a whole," said David Klerfeld, a national program leader in Human Nutrition for the USDA." Why aren’t we focusing on ginormous portions rather than wasting time looking at single ingredients?"

So the debate over HFCS and all-natural sugur looms on, and more TV commercials and lawsuits are probably soon to follow.  But consumers can also remember that using a food sweetener isn't a law, and many foods and drinks consumed actually don't need sugar. Natural or man-made.