A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
Look, to avoid a rathole argument that neither of us are really qualified to have, let's just stipulate: HFCS is evil. I completely agree. Regardless of any distinctive biochemical affects, it is clearly a tool used by the food industry to amp up palatability (and thus consumption and thus profit margin) in processed foods. But if we fixate on HFCS, we're just going to be victimized by the whatever sugar the industry replaces HFCS with.
I am not unique in this observation... but it is still anecdotal, take it as you will.
(Also, prefacing a comment with "look," is superfluous)
In fact, sucrose — even “natural” cane sugar — is 50% fructose once it is digested and absorbed. While this is 20% less than the fructose content of HFCS 55, food manufacturers need to use less (about 20% less) HFCS 55 to get the same sweetness, so it’s a wash as far as fructose content.
When Aspartame breaks down it releases Methyl Alcohol (anti-freeze) into your body. It's also been shown to have a similar effect as MSG regarding brain damage.
HFCS isn't much better though. The problem is that Fructose is normally found in fruit and therefore eaten with fiber, which slows the digestion and controls the insulin spike. Fructose alone digests much faster than sucrose.