HFCS: Is this threatening to you?

Have you ever read somewhere the ingredient “High Fructose Corn Syrup”? I hope you are familiar with HFCS because it is one of the most common sweeteners today used in commercially prepared food products. More importantly, after two hours of intake, it had been found in increased levels in a mother’s milk, which stayed high up to five hours. This means that in less than five hours, it has already increased your fructose level in blood.

That is the gist of the latest report from Paige Berger and her fellow researchers in the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and in other universities, such as The University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and the Washington University in St. Louis. The article was published in Nutrients.

Now, what is wrong with long-term intake of HFCS?

Several studies simply linked it to many adverse metabolic conditions, such as high blood sugar level (hyperglycemia), high blood fat level (dyslipidemia and hyperlipidemia) and high blood insulin level (hyperinsulinemia), which—alone or together—are associated with insulin resistance. This causes one form of diabetes mellitus, obesity and fatty liver disease (steatohepatitis).

The worldwide effort against sugar these days has led to a choice of an alternative. However, HFCS, like sugar, increases caloric intake, mainly from fructose intake. Fructose is a direct cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If you drink alcoholic beverages regularly, then you can also get an alcoholic fatty liver disease, thus, getting double the reason to worry about fatty liver disease.

Here is another one. Fatty liver disease can cause a low-grade inflammation in the body. This inflammation is the cause of chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases (e.g. high blood pressure), type-2 diabetes and some cancers.

If you are worried about that, I believe it is time to cut down your intake of HFCS significantly. That is, if you cannot cut it off completely from your diet. Fructose consumption, among adults, has increased enormously around the world. You can find it in your favorite soft drink, liquid fruit juice, bottled tea and several others. Check which of your favorite products has it and congratulate yourself if your favorites have none of it.

Happy New Year!