The Doctor's Corner
High Fructose Corn Syrup
By Dr. Timothy Grondin

Hi folks: You’re seeing more and more information these days about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), so I thought I would give you a quick overview of the various issues related to this substance.

The three main issues that have been linked to HFCS are diabetes, obesity and fatty liver. There appear to be others so let’s go over them, beginning with what is HFCS. This particular sweetener is made by changing the sugar in corn starch (glucose) into fructose which is another form of sugar. They do this because it’s cheaper than sugar and it extends the shelf life of processed foods and beverages.

So far the research has yielded mixed reviews about the effects of HFCS. Many studies suggest that HFCS and white sugar are metabolized by the body in pretty identical fashion. The conventional wisdom here is that the supposed link between HFCS and obesity is unwarranted because too much white table sugar will be metabolized in the same way and is just as likely to produce obesity and diabetes.

I completely agree with the conventional wisdom on this point. It doesn’t matter if you consume too much HFCS or sugar. The likelihood that you get fat and get diabetes is much higher. If you won’t get off the couch to burn off those extra calories, you, too, can shop for your clothing in the plus size department.

What’s of greater concern to me is that earlier this year Duke University Medical Center published a study showing that HFCS consumption was associated with scarring of the liver. Not good.

On top of that a new study from UCLA’s cancer research center has found that HFCS drives cell division in cancer tumors and therefore speeds the growth of the cancer. It’s been widely known for years that cancers use glucose, a simple sugar, to fuel their growth, but what this study shows is that cancer cells metabolize both sweeteners differently. In this study the cancer cells used fructose specifically to make nucleic acids, RNA and DNA, which the cancer cells need to divide and proliferate.

These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation of the cancer. Now this study was done using pancreatic cancer cells, but the lead researcher suggested that these findings might not be limited to just pancreatic cancer - that all types of cancer may be able to use HFCS to proliferate.

Now that is a scary thought. My advice to you here is to err on the side of caution regarding HFCS. And if you already have cancer, there should be zero sugar or HFCS in your diet.

Hope this helps.

Yours in health, Dr. Grondin

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