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Comment by Devilboy | Hacker News Reader

HFCS and sugar are almost identical - both are about half fructose and half glucose. I don't think one is significantly worse than the other.

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Sucrose (sugar) is a glucose bonded to a fructose.

HFCS is a solution of unbonded fructose and glucose. The most common HFCS is 45% glucose / 55% fructose.

HFCS may be worse for you if fructose is worse for you. That said, the concentrations aren't that much different.

> HFCS may be worse for you if fructose is worse for you. That said, the concentrations aren't that much different.

I'm not going to dig out the citations (because I'm not sure where I'd find them) but I'm pretty certain I read recently in a credible source:

* Fructose is worse for you

* ... but HFCS and sugar contain similar amounts

* HFCS is really bad for you

* ... but no worse for you than sugar (which is also really bad for you)

Maybe 'not by much,' but the difference is that sucrose as a 50/50 split of fructose-glucose, and HFCS has a 55/45 split. So if Fructose is bad for you, then HFCS has a higher concentration than sucrose (though only a 5% difference).

The bond in sucrose makes little difference. We've evolved to break that bond very easily. Since the internet tends to be a big fan of Lustig's sugar video, can I just cite him as saying they're the same?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Metabolism_of_sucrose

I've seen the video. I made no claims that the bond between the sugars in sucrose made a different. I was mostly attempting to explain the difference.

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