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It's no worse than sugar. Both are unnecessary for humans and can be extracted as needed from fats and proteins by the human body.

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
Agreed, but we didn’t used to shove sugar in literally everything. Corn syrup mixes well into solution, it’s pretty damn stable, cheap, easy to store and measure, won’t clump… and yea people used to like x product fine, but really prefer it sweeter. It’s not that corn syrup is bad, it’s too good which is bad.
- rob_c 4y ago
  Yet it is still to take off in Europe and people pay a lot of money to import European food worldwide... Strange...
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    Europe isn't the world and neither is the USA, there is very little difference to the human body between HFCS and cane sugar. They are chemically very similar. Just don't eat so much of them and you'll be fine. The people of the USA eat far too much of both, and neither is good for you in the quatanties we have them in. I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar.
    - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
      > I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar. They are too. It's a global obesity crisis. The stereotype of the fat American isn't as unique as it was 20 years ago. I was in Germany and France recently, and while not "as bad" as a county fair in Oklahoma, it was obvious.
ephbit 4y ago
According to Dr. Robert Lustig of University of California fructose is indeed worse than sugar. [1] It's been a good while since I've watched this video. As far as I remember, he argues that fructose is to the human body strikingly similar to alcohol. Since (unlike glucose) fructose can neither be utilized by muscles nor by the brain, it gets treated more or less like a toxic substance in the liver. In the video Lustig claims that fructose might even be harder on the liver than alcohol. So I'd conclude: more fructose --> less healthy. Thus High Fructose Corn Sirup HFCS = far from healthy. [1] https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641 https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641
- _yb2s 4y ago
  High fructose corn syrup and sucrose (table sugar, which is a combination of fructose and glucose) have roughly the same amount of fructose- 50%. Also, what Lustig says is nonsense and isn't backed by any plausible mechanism or observational evidence. Alcohol and fructose aren't metabolized very similarly at all. He points out that if liver glycogen is constantly full, the liver has to convert extra fructose to fat (de novo lipogenesis) [1], eventually leading to fatty liver disease, which also happens to alcohol, and short chain fats (e.g. from eating fiber that gets fermented in the gut). As he admits in his own paper this doesn't happen unless you are massively overeating. People that are eating in calorie balance will use the fructose immediately for cellular energy as designed, with no ill effects. Reglarly overeating without exercising much isn't great for your liver because it keeps glycogen overfilled... but it really doesn't matter much what you're overeating. [1] https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?login=true https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?lo...
  - ephbit 4y ago
    Agreed, fructose combined with overeating will lead likely to problems, fructose alone often not. But what do you make of this passage in the abstract of the linked paper? > Thus, fructose can exert detrimental health effects beyond its calories and in ways that mimic those of ethanol, its metabolic cousin. Indeed, the only distinction is that because fructose is not metabolized in the central nervous system, it does not exert the acute neuronal depression experienced by those imbibing ethanol. These metabolic and hedonic analogies argue that fructose should be thought of as “alcohol without the buzz.” As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false? Do you have any references for this?
rob_c 4y ago
Keep drinking the corn syrup and Doritos. The rest of us will enjoy our food.

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago

Agreed, but we didn’t used to shove sugar in literally everything. Corn syrup mixes well into solution, it’s pretty damn stable, cheap, easy to store and measure, won’t clump… and yea people used to like x product fine, but really prefer it sweeter. It’s not that corn syrup is bad, it’s too good which is bad.

rob_c 4y ago
Yet it is still to take off in Europe and people pay a lot of money to import European food worldwide... Strange...
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Europe isn't the world and neither is the USA, there is very little difference to the human body between HFCS and cane sugar. They are chemically very similar. Just don't eat so much of them and you'll be fine. The people of the USA eat far too much of both, and neither is good for you in the quatanties we have them in. I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    > I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar. They are too. It's a global obesity crisis. The stereotype of the fat American isn't as unique as it was 20 years ago. I was in Germany and France recently, and while not "as bad" as a county fair in Oklahoma, it was obvious.

ephbit 4y ago

According to Dr. Robert Lustig of University of California fructose is indeed worse than sugar. [1] It's been a good while since I've watched this video. As far as I remember, he argues that fructose is to the human body strikingly similar to alcohol. Since (unlike glucose) fructose can neither be utilized by muscles nor by the brain, it gets treated more or less like a toxic substance in the liver. In the video Lustig claims that fructose might even be harder on the liver than alcohol. So I'd conclude: more fructose --> less healthy. Thus High Fructose Corn Sirup HFCS = far from healthy. [1] https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641 https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641

_yb2s 4y ago
High fructose corn syrup and sucrose (table sugar, which is a combination of fructose and glucose) have roughly the same amount of fructose- 50%. Also, what Lustig says is nonsense and isn't backed by any plausible mechanism or observational evidence. Alcohol and fructose aren't metabolized very similarly at all. He points out that if liver glycogen is constantly full, the liver has to convert extra fructose to fat (de novo lipogenesis) [1], eventually leading to fatty liver disease, which also happens to alcohol, and short chain fats (e.g. from eating fiber that gets fermented in the gut). As he admits in his own paper this doesn't happen unless you are massively overeating. People that are eating in calorie balance will use the fructose immediately for cellular energy as designed, with no ill effects. Reglarly overeating without exercising much isn't great for your liver because it keeps glycogen overfilled... but it really doesn't matter much what you're overeating. [1] https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?login=true https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?lo...
- ephbit 4y ago
  Agreed, fructose combined with overeating will lead likely to problems, fructose alone often not. But what do you make of this passage in the abstract of the linked paper? > Thus, fructose can exert detrimental health effects beyond its calories and in ways that mimic those of ethanol, its metabolic cousin. Indeed, the only distinction is that because fructose is not metabolized in the central nervous system, it does not exert the acute neuronal depression experienced by those imbibing ethanol. These metabolic and hedonic analogies argue that fructose should be thought of as “alcohol without the buzz.” As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false? Do you have any references for this?

rob_c 4y ago

Keep drinking the corn syrup and Doritos. The rest of us will enjoy our food.