High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

Scientists have proved for the first time that fructose, a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks, can damage human metabolism and is fueling the obesity crisis.

Fructose, a sweetener usually derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of diabetes and heart disease.

Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

A Calorie is Not a Calorie

Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium -- and in fact, every living thing on the Earth--uses glucose for energy.

If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day -- a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate any negative metabolic effects.

It isn’t that fructose itself is bad -- it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging:

1.

Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.
2.

People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of HFCS.

Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s about 20% sweeter than table sugar.

HFCS is either 42% or 55% fructose, and sucrose is 50% fructose, so it's really a wash in terms of sweetness.
Still, this switch drastically altered the average American diet.

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS. The average Westerner consumes a staggering 142 pounds a year of sugar! And the very products most people rely on to lose weight -- the low-fat diet foods -- are often the ones highest in fructose.

Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from these processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all.

All That is Sweet

Americans eat more sugar than any other group of people in the world. We now have more children under the age of 12 that are Type 2 Diabetic than any other country in the world. What is worse, is that this disease just a few years ago was called ADULT onset diabetes. What's happening to us and our kids ?? SUGAR and more SUGAR, that's what's happening.
No matter your nutritional type, sugar is not good for you. Certainly you can tolerate small amounts if you are healthy and the majority of your diet is healthy, but let’s face it the average American is consuming over 150 pounds a year of sugar or nearly half a pound a day. Ideally your annual consumption should be well under ten pounds per YEAR. Sugar increases your insulin and leptin levels and decreases receptor sensitivity of both these hormones. This means that your body can't get insulin to work properly no matter what type of medication you might be on. This may prompt your doctor to increase your dose and spiraling you into other problems. This can lead to a wide range of health problems, including weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, premature aging, and heart disease.
Sugar suppresses your immune system, causing problems with allergies and digestive disorders. It can even bring on depression.
Stay tuned as we bring you more information, probably more than you wish you had, on the effects of sugar, the types of sugar and how you can heal Diabetes 2 if you or someone you know has it.