Take a good look at the ingredients of any can of non-diet soda, or any juice that is not "100%" fruit juice. You'll usually see the ingredient high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
HFCS is basically a type of sugar. In fact, it is a mixture of sugars...glucose and fructose, specifically. HFCS consumption increased dramatically in the U.S. from the late 1970's to the early 1980's.
Obesity also increased during this time period, tracking the increase in HFCS.
This has led a lot of people to blame HFCS on the explosion of obesity in the U.S.
However, remember in a previous blog where I talked about the *** hoc, ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this") fallacy. Just because ice cream intake goes up in the summer, and drowning incidence goes up in the summer, doesn't mean that eating ice cream makes you drown. Likewise, just because HFCS consumption goes up, and obesity goes up, does not mean one caused the other. Household income has increased just like obesity has....so does that mean making more money makes you fat?
So what am I getting at here? Well, a study was just published in the December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, comparing the effects of drinks sweetened with HFCS to drinks sweetened with sucrose (regular table sugar). The researchers had subjects consume a 360 calorie drink sweetened with either HFCS or sucrose. The subjects then rated their appetite an hour later, and ate a test meal. The researchers measured how much the people ate at the test meal. They found no differences between the sugars in their effects on appetite or on how much the subjects ate.
I'm bringing this up because some people have tried to argue that HFCS is somehow worse than plain table sugar. Not only will they point out the data above, they'll also point out how research shows fructose to disrupt appetite regulation more than other sugars. But here's the problem....a lot of this research compares pure fructose to other sugars. HFCS is not pure fructose. The HFCS you find in drinks is 55% fructose and the rest glucose. By comparison, sucrose is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. So there really isn't much difference between the two. In fact, the only real difference is that the glucose and fructose in normal table sugar are bound together, while the glucose and fructose in HFCS are not. However, there is no difference in the way the two are metabolized by the body. Also, when you put sucrose in an acidic solution like in a soft drink, it is broken down into glucose and fructose, making it no different from HFCS.
Now, I'm not saying that HFCS is healthy for you. I'm only saying that it is no worse than plain table sugar. Too much of either one will have negative effects on your health. But it is clear that the increase in HFCS in our food supply is not causing obesity. In fact, HFCS consumption plateaued from 1997 to 2004, while obesity continued to grow. If HFCS had never replaced sugar in our food supply, our society would still be just as obese as it is now. Sugar is still sugar, whether it's HFCS, table sugar, evaporated cane juice, honey, or the various other forms you'll find it in.