April 19 , 2005

Features

Casey Ferguson Mesa Legend

Benjamin Buettner
Mesa Legend



Everyday, in the United States, hands reach on grocery store shelves for food that could be causing heart disease, liver failure, diabetes, and obesity.
Sports drinks, bread, granola bars and many other unsuspecting products carry this potentially deadly product.
High-fructose corn syrup is a corn sweetener derived from the wet milling of corn where corn starch is converted to syrup.
It is used in a mass of products as a cheaper alternative to sugar because it gives products longer shelf life and costs less because of the subsidies put on sugar imports by the United States.
Dr. William G. Von Peters, who holds a private practice in Chattanooga, Tenn., in Alternative Medicine, believes that HFCS is a liver toxin.
“The liver basically shuts down all functions while dealing with high-fructose corn syrup,” Dr. Peters said of the liver’s fructose conversion to glucose.
Von Peters also believes high-fructose corn syrup parallels directly with the time frame in which America has developed an obesity problem.
High-fructose corn syrup increased in per capita usage from .23kg in 1970 to 28.4kg by 1997, according to research done by Chris Wharton.
Wharton who has a master’s degree in science, and is an ASU graduate student going for his doctorate, wrote a research paper, while going for his masters, on the risk of Obesity among Native Americans relating to sugary beverage consumption.
Wharton noted in his research that low income brings tendencies to eat easy and unhealthy foods for Native Americans, which he said his research showed that sugary beverages were most often used for energy consumption.
“It’s (HFCS) insidious nature that is everywhere in our (American) diet which is so dangerous. In the past 30 years, it has jumped 500 percent in availability,” said Wharton.
High-fructose corn syrup is the sweetener used in the beverages that Wharton spoke of and are harmful because of “the potential for over-consumption that cannot be burned off during the day,” Wharton said.
Jan Conwell, registered dietician for Southwest Bariatrics Nutrition Center in Scottsdale, thinks that the only benefit of such a product may be long gone.
“The highly processed high-fructose corn syrup does not offer any nutritional value except fat, which can be converted to energy, which hard working farmers in earlier dates could have used, but very few Americans these days need extra fat with no nutritional value.”
Karla Narducci, a consultant at Crandall Corporate Dietitians who has her bachelor’s degree in dietetics said that the human body reacts unnaturally to the manufactured additive.
“It (HFCS) is a processed ingredient, as opposed to natural, and the human body does not recognize it as natural.
It is then converted directly to fat. It cannot be burned off before being stored as fat,” said Narducci.
Narducci also explained the dangers after the liver changes the fructose to glucose.
Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, is released before glucose can enter cells of the human body for energy use.
“High-fructose corn syrup over activates insulin, which increases the risk of heart disease. Insulin hardens arteries.”
Wharton expressed a direct link from HFCS to diabetes.
“Over consumption of fructose produces insulin. Overtime it can lead to insulin sensitivity or diabetes,” Wharton said.
Jeff Messer, Ph.D. in exercise physiology and full-time faculty at Mesa Community College in the Department of Physical Education and Exercise Science, views HFCS as just “additional calories.”
Messer, though, admitted that there are more downfalls to HFCS, as he explained that it may actually make one hungrier than before consumption.
“Fructose does not suppress grehlin (a hormone in the human body which controls food intake).
If you put a proposed relation between HFCS, leptin (a chemical produced by cells that signal plenty of fat is stored in the human body), and grehlin, then fructose would increase the drive to consume food,” said Messer.
Messer, however, stressed the idea of balance of energy intake and energy expenditure as the fundamental influence in weight gain and loss.
“I do believe that making a highly refined sugar sweetener causes more health problems,” added Messer.
In an article written by Von Peters, Peters analyzed sports drinks (specifically Powerade and Gatorade) and explains how Gatorade is far and away the best sports drink for the human body.
The article explained Powerade’s detrimental use of HFCS and illustrated Gatorade’s unique blend for its sweetener.
Gatorade uses sucrose and glucose and glucose-fructose syrup, as opposed to the HFCS, which is better for the human body because the fructose in sucrose is bound up.
Von Peters emphasized the use glucose which is metabolized without a problem.
The story also detailed a study done (Dr. Fields) on rats that were given fructose and others given high amounts of glucose.
“These two groups were copper deficient as much of America is,” Von Peters states.
The glucose group was unaffected while the fructose group did not reach adulthood.
They suffered through anemia, high cholesterol and their hearts ultimately ended up exploding in many cases.

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