May 6: A supplement to be published in the June issue of the Journal of Nutrition encourages the scientific community and the general public to stop demonizing high fructose corn syrup as the culprit of obesity and to rethink the myths about high fructose corn syrup's impact on the American diet.
"The State of the Science on Dietary Sweeteners Containing Fructose" is the scientific summary of a joint conference held last year by the International Life Sciences Institute of North America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
Click here for more information.
The conference brought together several scientific leaders from varying backgrounds, including former critics of high fructose corn syrup, who found there is little evidence that high fructose corn syrup and sugar (or sucrose) have differing effects on satiety, overall energy balance, metabolic hormones or biochemical metabolites such as triglycerides and uric acid – all suggesting no unique causal role for high fructose corn syrup in obesity.
According to Suzanne P. Murphy, Ph.D., R.D., research professor at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii, “high fructose corn syrup and sucrose are similar and one is not ‘better or worse’ than the other.”
Dr. Murphy added that “it does not appear to be practical to base dietary guidance on selecting or avoiding these specific types of sweeteners.”
“These peer-reviewed papers expose the confusion about high fructose corn syrup: it is a case of mistaken identity between two sweeteners," said Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association. “High fructose corn syrup is not high in fructose, but rather has roughly half fructose and half glucose, just like sugar – therefore, it should come as no surprise that high fructose corn syrup and sugar are metabolized the same way in our bodies.”
The American Medical Association last year helped put to rest a common misunderstanding about high fructose corn syrup and obesity, stating that “high fructose syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners.” Even former critics of high fructose syrup dispelled myths and distanced themselves from earlier speculation about the sweetener's link to obesity in a comprehensive scientific review published in the December 2008 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.