High fructose corn syrup is just one food ingredient, among many others, that virtually every health advocate will tell you to avoid.
A large organization representing the corn refining industry, continues to claim that the high fructose in corn syrup is totally safe and perfectly “natural, ” but many health experts plus the results. Research could not disagree more.
Negative impacts of high fructose corn syrup
One of the contributions this product is making to our society is an alarming increase in obesity rates. Scientists have repeatedly shown that high fructose corn syrup, used in thousands of food products and non-alcoholic beverages, can negatively impact human metabolism and contribute to the growing obesity epidemic.
High Fructose Corn Syrup Alters Human Metabolism
Research shows that the high fructose in corn syrup changes human metabolism, and is metabolized very differently from other sugars.
HFCS is a highly processed product that contains almost the same amount of fructose and glucose. Sucrose, however, is a larger sugar molecule that is metabolized into glucose and fructose in the intestine.
It metabolizes fat in the body much faster than other sugars, resulting in fat gain. Since fructose is consumed in liquid form, the negative effects on human metabolism are even greater.
Can damage the liver and heart
Over the course of 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a strictly controlled diet, including high levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease.
Furthermore, 100% of the fructose consumed is absorbed by the liver, while only some glucose passes through the liver, and is then excreted. This results in increased fat deposition in the abdominal cavity and increased blood levels of triglycerides, which are risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.
Increased abdominal fat and obesity rates
To assess the relative effects of these sugars on sustained consumption in humans, overweight and obese subjects consumed glucose or sugary drinks that provide 25% of energy needs for 10 weeks.
Although both groups showed similar weight gain during the intervention, visceral adipose volume increased significantly only in subjects who consumed fructose and [fructose-sweetened beverages] decreased insulin sensitivity in overweight humans.
Some people claim that the high fructose in corn syrup is safe at low levels, but even if it were remotely true, the ingredient is still found in thousands of products from major companies that own the food and beverage products that are consumed. In high doses.
It is in these high doses that they have also been found to contain mercury, an element that is highly harmful to the human body. Sugar itself is in over-consumption today, causing a multitude of health problems, but turning the natural form of sugar into high fructose corn syrup causes further damage to human metabolism and the liver.