Newly Discovered Danger of High Fructose Corn Syrup is Alarming
It’s no mystery that packaged and prepared foods in our grocery stores are full of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Though while more food makers are omitting this ingredient due to health dangers (and consumer demand), some companies are still including this health-damaging ingredient. Now, new troubling scientific studies reveal how high fructose corn syrup-containing foods are causing yet another unwanted side effect – heart failure.
The Big Food Sugar Switch
Professor for cell biology at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Molecular Health Sciences, Wilhelm Krek summarizes the problem with today’s nutrition. He explains that fructose was a replacement for glucose, which at one point in time, was believed to be better for consumers.
At first blush, you can see why this was believed. While glucose spikes blood sugar levels and causes insulin secretions, fructose hardly makes them budge. And since it ‘tastes’ sweeter, food manufacturers thought it was an ideal food additive.
Unfortunately, the assumption that fructose (including high fructose corn syrup) was any better, was dead wrong. The liver converts fructose directly into fat. People who consume lots of fructose end up developing high blood pressure, suffering from obesity, and developing insulin resistance, among other health issues. Doctors usually call this metabolic syndrome – and for some time, they couldn’t figure out why so many Americans were so overweight.
In the past 30 years, the obesity rates in the US (and other fast-food nations) have absolutely sky-rocketed. It isn’t even necessarily because we are eating more and lacking physical exercise, or even because of genetics.
Medical bills to treat diseases associated with obesity are more than $200 billion annually now. Much of the obesity problem lies in food additives like fructose which food companies are so eager to put in their products.
Fructose, since it is sweeter, also causes us to desire sweeter and sweeter foods to satiate that taste while also limiting the secretion of leptin, a hormone which tells our brains we are satiated.
Furthermore, mercury is used in the production process of many types of fructose. So products which contain fructose also often contain traces of mercury.
This is old news though. These dangers of fructose are well established. In a new paper by Krek and Peter Mirtschink, an even more troubling side effect of fructose is described.
Fructose Causes an Overgrown Heart Muscle
Unknown previously, but verified through their research and recently published in Nature, fructose has been discovered to be a key driver for a molecular mechanism that drives uncontrolled growth of the heart muscle. This condition can eventually lead to complete heart failure, as the heart literally outgrows its ability to function within the body.
What’s more, since one consumes fructose to cause this issue, they likely have high blood pressure as well, which is a one-two punch to the cardiovascular system.
It’s also important to note that the growing heart requires more oxygen. When one has high blood pressure, the veins have a more difficult time pumping oxygen-rich blood to the heart. In an effort to keep us alive, our heart cells switch to an alternate supply of energy that is anaerobic in nature. The body goes into glycolysis — literally, the ‘splitting of sugars’. This, in turn, sets up a fatal chain reaction. The heart actually grows since it is harder to pump the blood through the circulatory system.
In the study, researchers discovered that a lack of oxygen within the heart’s cells would ‘flip a switch’ wherein HIF molecules “cause the heart muscle cells to produce ketohexokinase-C (KHK-C), the central enzyme in fructose metabolism. KHK-C has a high affinity for fructose and can therefore process it very efficiently. The production of KHK-C also has a reinforcing effect on glycolysis.”
The researchers also found that processed foods containing fructose were worrisome for instigating heart failure, whereas, normal consumption of fruit, since it contains fiber, vitamins, and important trace elements, did not have the same effect on the body.
Fructose in our Food Supply
The per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup (largely made from GM corn) has skyrocketed. You would perhaps expect fructose to be in cakes, cookies, and even TV dinners, but what about yogurt, peanut butter, ketchup, iced tea, or tonic water? Surprised? Most people are.
Another reason to avoid fructose is that its most common form, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is derived from genetically modified corn. That means it was developed in a lab, not grown and milled before it ended up in your table. The food we purchase from our grocery stores comes from crops which are absolutely dominated by GM seed.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention weight gain data illustrates that our obesity epidemic accelerated dramatically after GMO foods were introduced in the early 1990s. It is estimated that more than 80% of everything eaten in the US now is genetically altered since Americans rely so heavily on processed foods for their daily calories.
There are ways to avoid this, though. You have to really read food labels to avoid fructose entirely, including purchasing certified organic foods that would not contain GM HFCS. A list of foods containing fructose is also listed here.
Or, better yet, stay away from anything in a package, and eat a piece of real fruit. You’ll enjoy better health and avoid Big Food’s numerous additional additives and GMOs besides fructose in the process. Real health requires real food, and our hearts are heavy from the burden of corporate food greed. This latest study proves it.
This article is reprinted from materials provided by ETH Zurich.
HFCS, GMO, GE, Monsanto, Dow, EPA, FDA, USDA…death
Eat your HFCS, GMO and get all the vaccines you are told to get, you are a slave and need to comply with the NWO
Shill alert. Straw man argument she did not claim any kind of high fructose corn syrup is good for you.
What she meant was (and I’m sure you could figure this out for yourself if you weren’t paid not to) is that GMO-derived HFCS will also have in it whatever the corn had engineered into it, like Bt insecticide and/or epicyte human spermicide.
And who told you that, Monsanto? We should believe everything they tell us because they would never deceive us just for profit, would they?.
Thanks for standing up to the anti-GMO hysterics. You’d think the sky was falling to hear them talk. There are many challenges to getting good nutrition, but as far as I can tell, consuming GMO foods isn’t one of them.
Bobo can’t figure out his way out of a wet paper bag. Give him a cracker, and He’ll shut up.
Maybe I missed it, but otherwise, I’m surprised that there is no mention in the article that a couple of years ago, the criminals at the FDA allowed manufacturers to use “corn sugar” in place of HFCS. They’re both the same exact thing.
Hey Bobo, is HFCS your secret to your lovely complexion?
Interesting that Bobo should get his lower extremities in an uproar over these five parenthetical words – (largely made from GM corn). This is an undeniable fact. While one rarely can be sure about such things, I would take better than even odds that he gets paid by the word. Our tax dollars at work 🙁 As to whether all the nasty ingredient(s) in Monsanto corn, which give French lab rats horrendous tumors, are removed in the HFCS process is still an open question. I, for one, wish to have nothing to do with any GMO food if I can help it. Furthermore, along with the ethanol boondoggle, it keeps the GMO corn market humming along when it should be taken out by the throat and strangled. It is weaponized “food.”
and none of this gets anywhere near to FACT that most GMO foods are so modified as to be tolerant of Roundup, the active ingredient of which is glyphosate. Turns out that is even worse then HFCS, does NOT break down in the soil after application (despite early claims that Roundup is completely biodegradable, going to nothing in 72 hours… absolutely not so) instead persisting for years. It IS absorbed into the produce. In our bodies it is a known carcinogen, messes witih bone marrow production, liver, spleen, and is a neurotoxin seemingly connected with some of the increasingly common disorders such as Downs, Autism, ADHD and related, and the real kicker, seems closely linked to the astounding increase in gluten intolerance, celiac, and similar digestive disorders, and through the mechanism of messing with our healthy populations of gut micro-organisms, changing our metabolism and immune system responses. If the direct ingestion of the GMO food product was the only, or even the worst, issue it might not warrant such careful avoidance. But, all in, HFCS is one of the worst compounds ever released onto the unsuspecting
Iced tea? How in blue bazes could it get into tea??
easy. The people who make and bottle the Ready To Drink forms of this use HFCS for the sweetener. Most are served/sold cold… theoretically a replacment for soda pop, but every bit as nasty with the same or smetimes more HFCS.
READ the ingredient lists in ALL packaged and prepared foods yu buy. If it says HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup, or just “corn syrup” don[t buy it. And CERTAINLY do not eat it.
Thanks. I never even considered bottled tea. Yuk!
They put it in there for people who are addicted to sugar. Stop drinking it and they’ll stop making it.
You are mostly correct. But here is the real problem with corn sugar: You can inject is all day and your brain never registers that you ingested any. I have a video series by a U of Washington MD, Dr. Wendell Fleet. In it he describes the issues of corn sugar. Here is link if interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zx7gSDIkrE
Dr. Fleet also says that 6% of our total health cost is dialysis. That is a big number.
There is a conglomerate in Florida that keeps quotas on sugar production. And they of course are allowed to decide how much sugar my be introduced into the American market. This is a left over from the worst president, (in my opinion) since the founding of America, FDR. The Fanjul family has spent billions, yes with a b, of dollars to preserve their monopoly on sugar in America. They have forced Caribbean economies into bankruptcy to preserve their strangle hold on the sugar production, importation and distribution in USA. Any studies showing fructose as being good were done knowing that it was untrue. The reason was to try to keep the price of sugary foods and drinks under control since the price of sugar is kept artificially high. Stop the quotas and allow any one to grow and market sugar and watch the market expand, less rotten teeth, less fragile bone and one rotten family have to compete in the fair and open market place.
One last thing, read this article to understand high fructose sugar usage. http://www.coha.org/u-s-sugar-subsidies-and-the-caribbeans-sugar-economies/
I knew food producers used battery acid to extact the sugars from corn. I had no idea they used mercury. This is madness.
Yes, but at least you were getting the RDA for battery acid and mercury. Be thankful!
The point about HFCS has been well stated. If you differ, go for whatever suits you. The best way to fight GMO products is not buying them and I am glad to see that the fastest growing labels in the US are non-gmo certified and organic. Yes, the prices may be higher than gmo products, but the cures and treatments to diseases caused by them are truly unaffordable.
I know why don’t people stop eating crap and they won’t have to worry about it? Make your own food, then you’ll know what’s in it. To blame high fructose corn syrup on someone’s obesity is ludicrous. You are what you put in – if you’re consuming high quantities of food with ANY sweetener in it, you’re on the wrong train. A friend and I went to the grocery store where she put on an academy winning performance over the HFCS in one of the things she was buying for her children. I shook my head and asked her why she didn’t opt for the grapes instead? If you don’t want to be obese STOP STUFFING YOUR FACE.
If people don’t know about HFCS, then they will continue to buy it. President Trump should ban the substance in the United States. That would cut down on obesity, sickness and health care costs.
Thoughts?
yea, i try to stick with mainly vegetables with some fruit, compex carbs, and unprocessed lean meats. im trying to avoid preservatives in general. im trying to avoid all saturated fat ie anything that is not still liquid in the freezer (fat). im beginning to make my own breads etc ie to avoid the salt and preservatives. basically im trying to eat only “whole foods” ie those that are unprocessed. even poultry has added sodium ie in the grocery store. basicially we may never know what is good/bad, but it would be logical to eliminate that which is not needed ie b’s, c, a, d, e, k, and ess. minerals along with unsat fat, compex carbs, and lean protien.