Much Ado about HFCS

Much Ado about High Fructose Corn Syrup
in Beverages: The Meat of the Matter

G Harvey Anderson, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.

This editorial by G. Harvey Anderson in the December 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition discusses the rise of the theory that high fructose corn syrup is uniquely obesogenic "because fructose bypasses food intake regulatory systems and favors lipogenesis." The theory is flawed according to Anderson because it does not take into account that per capita availability of total energy from other sources has also increased. Nor does it take into account that food and beverage manufacturers' use of high fructose corn syrup displaced sucrose use. He notes "There is no evidence that the ratio of fructose and glucose consumed from sugars has changed over the past 4 decades as a result of HFCS replacing sucrose in many applications."

Further, Anderson points to current research on the impact of milk and beverages sweetened with sucrose or high fructose corn syrup on satiety by Soenen and Westerterp-Plantenga, noting that the study "merits emphasis because it challenges the argument of biologic plausibility that was proposed to support the hypothesis."

Anderson continues by noting that obesity is caused by a number of factors and targeting one component of the food supply is unlikely to succeed in reducing its prevalence. In closing, Anderson states:

"Unfortunately the recent focus on HFCS has done little to resolve the role of sugars in contributing to energy imbalance. The hypothesis that the replacement of sucrose with HFCS in beverages plays a causative role in obesity is not supported on the basis of its composition, biologic actions, or short-term effects on food intake. Had the hypothesis been phrased in the converse, namely that replacing HFCS with sucrose in beverages would be a solution for the obesity epidemic, its merit would have been seen more clearly. Put simply, a proposal that a return to sucrose-containing beverages would be a credible solution to the obesity epidemic would have been met with outright dismissal. In many countries where trade barriers have prevented the replacement of sucrose with HFCS, the prevalence of obesity is high. Therefore, what role HFCS in beverages plays in the etiology of obesity, as in Much Ado about Nothing (1), may simply be a play on words.

Claudio: Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

Leonato: O, when she had written it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet(1)."

1. Shakespeare W. Much ado about nothing. Ed: Zitner SP. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1993:97-202.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 86, No. 6, 1577-1578, December 2007