Fructose--or "Corn Sugar"--Is Not The Same As Sugar

by Dave Wittenborn - September 16, 2010

On September 14th, the Corn Refiners Association petitioned the FDA to approve the use of the name "corn sugar" to replace "fructose."

While this may be the equivalent of placing a fake nose and glasses over the substance formerly known as high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, the assumption by corn refiners such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland that the general public is too stupid to see through the disguise is nowhere near as offensive as the outright lies being told by the industry that your body can't tell the difference between HFCS and sugar.

If you would like an in-depth, but very entertaining explanation of how your body metabolizes fructose differently than sugar, watch this outstanding presentation by Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D., a UCSF Professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

vidlink

Here's the deal. HFCS used in most food products is a blend of about 55% fructose and 42% glucose. Sugar, or sucrose is also composed of about the same proportions of the same two substances. The difference, and your body considers it to be a BIG difference, is that in regular sugar, the fructose and glucose components are chemically bonded together. In HFCS, they are not chemically connected.

 This diagram depicts roughly what a molecule of sugar would look like, fructose and glucose, bound together. Take away the "bar" that connects the two, and you have the equivalent of HFCS.

Because of this difference, according to researchers at Princeton University, your liver metabolizes HFCS in a very different, and harmful, way than it metabolizes the same amount of calories from cane sugar, leading to significant relative weight gain and other health problems from HFCS.

As if that's not enough, recently a UCLA research team found that cancer cells that were fed fructose grew at a significantly faster rate than did cells that were fed common sugar.

Study author Dr. Anthony Heaney, Associate Professor of Medicine and Neurosurgery at UCLA's cancer center, said it was likely that fructose would also speed the growth of other cancers as well. The study was published in the August 1, 2010 issue of Cancer Research.

The bottom line is this: if HFCS was indeed the same as sugar, the corn refiners would be providing research to prove it, rather than hiding behind the smoke and mirrors of changing its name. The truth is, it's NOT the same, and independent research proves it. The FDA should ignore the name change request and focus on the lies being told to the public.