Does HFCS make you fat?

Most of us are aware of the controversy surrounding high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) being used in so many of our foods. There's a Wikipedia page with lots of information about it, but this article from Princeton University was just released on Monday, with some alarming information about HFCS. At least, I found it to be so, because I was of a mind that all sugars are equal in making us gain weight. But if these results are correct, it's just not so.

To summarize, studies showed that rats with access to HFCS gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same, and that weight was mostly around the abdomen. From the article:

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight."

The researchers published their results, which were replicated, in the March 18 edition of the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior. The reason behind this effect of HFCS is not yet understood, but they speculate that the difference "may relate to the fact that excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles."

I snagged this graphic from the Wikipedia page. The green line is HFCS consumption. Even if you were to work hard to keep HFCS out of your diet, it's really difficult if you eat much processed food, because it's a cheap sweetener used in sodas, cereals, fruit juice, bread, yogurt, ketchup and mayonnaise. The article says that today Americans, on average, consume 60 pounds of it per person every year! And we didn't start using it until it was developed in the mid-1970s.

Read the article and see what you think. Or, if you want to delve deeper, the Wikipedia link addresses many of the other controversies surrounding HFCS, like the fact that it contains mercury, which appears to come from the manufacturing process itself. Or that it became a sucrose replacement to feed honeybees in the United States, which might have something to do with bee colony collapse that started a while ago (that's just my conjecture).

Anyway, in my mind I think it would be wise to try to reduce one's consumption of it until more is known, especially if you want to lose weight. I found it in some of the foods in my pantry when I went looking after reading this article. I always want to know whether what I am paying good money for is actually good for me or not!
:-)