High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010) | Hacker News Reader

High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

princeton.edu

181 pointsmhb122 comments

Stop giving out corn welfare to corporations and problem solved.

It's the ONLY reason why it's so heavily used.

Corn syrup and ethanol - two massively damaging products of a completely corrupt system that everyone refuses to change because of massive profits off taxpayers.

It should be specified that what you say is true of ethanol in the US. In places like Brazil where they grow lots of sugar cane, it's a different story.

And in theory, if ethanol were widely adopted as a fuel source in the US, we could potentially move to production using GM algae or something similar that would actually be efficient.

Ethanol plays havoc with small engines. A couple of years ago I forgot to make sure the tank was empty and the fuel lines were cleared before winter. In the spring I had to take it to a lawn mower repair shop and plop down $50 just to clean out the gummed-up lines. It's even worse - and more expensive - for boat motors.

Historically, there have been large sugar tariffs shielding the domestic sugar industry. There have been some recent changes, like raised tariff-free limits or NAFTA allowing free imports from Mexico, but the market is still used to corn syrup being the most economical choice.

Another control on this is the Overall Allotment Quantity of sugar, which is the USDA-regulated quantity of sugar which can be sold in any year. If you have too much sugar to sell, you'll have to store it or dump it. This is to keep sugar's price high.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overall_Allotment_Quantity

That's an... interesting mechanism. I can't figure out what the goal is, aside from, as you said, keeping prices high (specifically for those two kinds of sugar, which seems extra weird) - is there another reasonable explanation?

Moorcock this is the official purpose, they never even feigned it being something'.else.

It's extremely complicated. One reason for keeping prices high this season is to prevent loan defaults from the farmers/producers in the fall. So one part of the federal government may spend another $40mil affecting the sugar market (high prices this season) to prevent a loan default of $100mil to different parts of same federal government and all of the fallout to those small businesses. Bankruptcy threatens families keeping their farms... as big of a deal as foreclosures for suburbanites.

The loans are based on a variety of factors and have a variety of goals from ensuring that family farms exist (and don't get gobbled by mega-farm corps) to ensuring that we grow certain kinds of crops in this country to ensuring we build better combines. It's very complicated and any 'narrative' that has a single cause or explanation is likely incorrect.

The "family farm" defense of agricultural subsidies is dead wrong. In fact, most programs are price subsidies, so the more you produce, the more you benefit, and as a result most of the subsidies go to the largest producers-- we actually subsidize agribusiness over family farmers, relatively speaking. Further, the value of the subsidies gets capitalized into the land and makes it impossible for young farmers to get started in the business.

Thanks for the laugh. You know you've reached the pinnacle of "first world problems" when a phrase like corrupt system, which has historically been used to describe things like institutional discrimination and genocide, is now used to describe the "horrors" of agricultural subsidies and tariffs. I'm surprised that Amnesty International hasn't updated their corruption index accordingly, which would surely put every sovereign nation's score in the single digits.

I believe that if one first resolves domestic problems they become more effective in helping people outside the home.

> Thanks for the laugh.

Speaking of which, please don't abuse the other members. It only undermines your humanitarian intentions.

Or third-world problems, such as when we started dumping all of that subsidized corn into the Mexican market.

When high tariffs on the importation of sugar prevents countries from developing their own agriculture industries, it's not just a first world problem. It's BS like this that causes international tension, wars, and famine. This situation isn't as superficial as it may seem on the surface.

Corruption is misuse of bureaucratic power for personal financial gain. I don't know why Amnesty International would spend a lot of time on that rather than the atrocities you speak of, and if they publish a "corruption index" I can't find it.

The problem is not exactly solved, because it is not clear what the farmers should grow in the place of corn. As a grain farmer operating in a country that does not have subsidies, we still end up growing corn, even if it results in a loss. Bankers prefer to see a loss than to leave the land lay fallow, and there are not many famers who can operate against banker's wishes in such a capital intensive business.

You cannot just simply transition into other non-grain crops because nobody has the multi-million dollar investment that it would take to build up the necessary infrastructure, the environment is not always suitable for all types of food, and you cannot get away with growing the same crop year after year. Corn solves a lot of those problems, even if it ends up creating others, as you point out.

It is a pretty deep problem that cannot be solved with just a stroke of a pen, though innovation is always welcome on the farm, if you have real solutions.

> The problem is not exactly solved, because it is not clear what the farmers should grow in the place of corn.

It's quite possible they should stop being farmers and that the nation should farm out (get it?) much of its agriculture to the developing world. This is certainly what "the market" dictates and something which government spends a lot of money working to prevent.

While it might seem logical in the peaceful times we've grown accustomed to, it is going to still be a tough sell for nations like the USA that have a war-centric mindset. A starving population is how you lose wars, and the work the government does to maintain the local food supply exists for that reason.

Also, there is growing concern for our ability to replenish food-stocks as-is. If farming ceases in these nations, you lose a lot of food people directly eat too.

> A starving population is how you lose wars, and the work the government does to maintain the local food supply exists for that reason.

While it's true that having crops in the fields would help keep people fed during a world war that disrupted world agriculture, that's not the reason "the work the government does to maintain the local food supply exists." It exists because agriculture has a powerful lobby and they make a lot of money this way. Poor, developing world farmers don't get a vote.

It's sometimes used as a post-hoc justification for what is done.

> Also, there is growing concern for our ability to replenish food-stocks as-is. If farming ceases in these nations, you lose a lot of food people directly eat too.

Killing developed world agricultural subsidies and allowing market competition to stimulate agricultural production in the developing world is one of those things that seems to unite almost all economists. This seems to be because they think it will make food less expensive and more accessible. I'm not familiar with anyone making the opposite case?

The problem with the free market and agriculture is that demand is highly inelastic. Therefore the natural price difference between a good year for a crop and a bad year isn't 10%, it is more like 10x, and lots of people get to be hungry from time to time.

However if you can convince farmers to always grow extra, then the difference between a good year and a bad one is closer to 10%, and you never have famines.

After repeated bad experiences, every country with the capability has decided that they want farmers to grow extra in normal years. After that the question becomes how to subsidize them.

This is mostly false. I'll try to explain.

If subsidization of farmers to produce more than the market is predicted to demand in order to smooth out volatility and prevent famine is necessary (and it seems to me like a laudable goal), government can simply fund overseas farmers to overproduce, rather than its own. It would be less expensive than the current process in those cases where overseas farmers produce more cheaply. In many cases they'd still be subsidizing their own farmers.

Pretty much the only thing that would be untenable would be the current practice of paying "farmers" who own land to not produce. As far as I can tell everyone who doesn't receive that money hates the practice, so maybe we should just stop doing it. Which brings me to...

> After repeated bad experiences, every country with the capability has decided that they want farmers to grow extra in normal years.

They haven't really. It's not like we ever had a vote on it. The current process is just a powerful lobby exercising their considerable power.

I'm not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. It seems to me to be on par in terms of quality with the rest of the thread.

Sure, there's no hard evidence given with any assertion, but there aren't really in the immediate ancestors either. This just seems to be an unpopular view, but I think that it's better to offer a counterargument than to downvote in that case, especially since downvoting visually deemphasizes the comment, which surely leads to fewer people reading it. To me, that outcome doesn't seem justified for this comment.

Thanks. I wonder what you'd like to see in terms of hard evidence?

I think it is getting downvoted because it waves its hands in response to a specific, easily verifiable, claim. And worse yet, waves its hands with weak arguments.

I claimed that the price of agricultural goods is inelastic. That's easy to verify one way or another. In 2011 the world produced 5% less of basic staples than normal. Prices of basic food staples doubled worldwide. Many countries had riots as a result. There you go, price inelasticity in action. (In fact the inelasticity of demand to price for food is the standard textbook example of price inelasticity.)

See http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/soaring-food-pri... for verification of the 2011 food price claim.

> I think it is getting downvoted because it waves its hands in response to a specific, easily verifiable, claim.

Odd. I thought the issue of elasticity was uninteresting and didn't really intend to comment on it.

In any case, you're giving downvoters a little too much credit. "Hulk disagree! Hulk smash, downvote!"

> See http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/soaring-food-pri.... for verification of the 2011 food price claim.

For a good time, google "krugman agricultural subsidies".

This is mostly false. I'll try to explain.

I don't believe it is false. Instead of explaining again, can you provide specific verifiable assertions and citations? I'll make it easy, I'll give you specifics to refute.

Is your argument truly based on the assumption that government generally solve problems in efficient ways??

The truth is that it is easier for most governments to justify giving subsidies to their own citizens rather than foreign countries. Also self-sufficiency on food is seen by many as a security issue, and therefore there is a resistance to relying on others.

That said, different countries use different solutions. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/may/10/chi... for a news article indicating that China is taking exactly the efficient approach that you suggest.

Pretty much the only thing that would be untenable would be the current practice of paying "farmers" who own land to not produce. As far as I can tell everyone who doesn't receive that money hates the practice, so maybe we should just stop doing it. Which brings me to...

The USA pays people to keep land ready but unused so that production can rapidly improve. The European Union instead accumulates surpluses - aka the famous "butter mountains" and "milk lakes". Those are just different means to the same end - ensuring that there won't be a major famine.

> After repeated bad experiences, every country with the capability has decided that they want farmers to grow extra in normal years.

They haven't really. It's not like we ever had a vote on it. The current process is just a powerful lobby exercising their considerable power.

No, YOU never got to vote on it. It was before your time. That doesn't mean that I am wrong.

The European Union's policies were explicitly adopted as a reaction to famines after WW II. (Which in turn were significantly lessened thanks to major US intervention.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy for confirmation.

The US policies started earlier, and were motivated by the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. http://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2012/11/16/ken-burns-dus... is one of the first links that I came to which can verify that.

> The truth is that it is easier for most governments to justify giving subsidies to their own citizens rather than foreign countries.

I don't disagree with that statement at all. It is a statement that only speaks to public sentiment and it strikes me as probably correct.

> Also self-sufficiency on food is seen by many as a security issue, and therefore there is a resistance to relying on others.

I don't disagree but I suspect there's little actual analysis going on among most people as to the actual tradeoff: the current system means we have an agricultural system that can carry us if we have to fight a world war capable of completely disrupting world food markets, as we are a net exporter of food. On the other hand strife, terrorism, and small wars are more likely until the developing world actually leaves extreme poverty behind. Having to compete with subsidized agriculture in the developed world slows this process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#Poverty_i...

> The USA pays people to keep land ready but unused so that production can rapidly improve.

The only guy I know who gets one of those subsidy checks because he owns land will never, ever be a farmer. His yard was farmland once. Interesting system.

> The European Union instead accumulates surpluses - aka the famous "butter mountains" and "milk lakes". Those are just different means to the same end - ensuring that there won't be a major famine.

The policy contributes to poverty and famine in Africa. Ideally we would find a way to mitigate famine risk here without sticking it to them.

> The US policies started earlier, and were motivated by the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

I can't speak to European policy but the incentives and politics today in the US (in the area of agriculture, and everything else) are radically different than they were eighty years ago. Still, I take your point and thanks for sharing that.

I am making a statement about the reasoning that results in current policies. I'm not saying that the policies are well-executed (indeed I think they are not), merely that they have something more than just "reward a well-connected lobby" justifying them.

As for African poverty and famine, you're right that measures that protect farmers in rich countries will hurt farmers in poor ones. However the #1 cause of African famine remains corruption and war inside of Africa. And on current economic trends, we'll see economic powerhouses emerging in Africa in near decades. So as sad as our neglect of the interests of over a billion Africans is, it does not seem to be a permanent boot in the face.

For perspective, take 5 minutes to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo. There are - today - African countries that are better off than any country in the world was 70 years ago. If others continue on trends that have happened elsewhere, things are going to improve fairly dramatically.

I agree with you that our agricultural policies create problems. But I'm optimistic about what the future holds for people who are impacted.

>However if you can convince farmers to always grow extra, then the difference between a good year and a bad one is closer to 10%, and you never have famines.

Storing food doesn't require subsidies. The government can buy non-subsidized food from the global market which may include local sources, and store it at their own expense.

During low-yield years, the private market (grocery stores) can buy food from the global market or from private food stores. If they cannot, the government can finally step in.

It's quite possible they should stop being farmers and that the nation should farm out (get it?) much of its agriculture to the developing world.

A fundamental reason countries that can afford it have agricultural subsidies is that a little overproduction ensures food security. If you outsource your food production to another country, and there's a worldwide food shortage, that country can demand almost anything from you and get it, because otherwise some of your people starve.

As long as the subsidies exist, there is no capitalistic incentive to solve the problem.

If a solution NEEDS to be found, it is more likely to be found.

In a way the market does work as you describe. If you recall (I'm not sure how publicized it was), the non-subsidized grain farmers of the world were on the brink of bankruptcy around the 2006 timeframe. The solution turned out to be changes to ethanol usage, for better or worse.

It isn't just subsidies, there are also tariffs on the import of sugar to keep the prices high. The market is grossly manipulated by the government and the farming industry.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/policy...

It's not the corn subsidies; it's the tariff on sugar imports. The US cannot produce much cane sugar domestically.

Corn subsidies are only about $2B a year, and 75% of corn is used for animal feed or ethanol.

    http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize#U.S._usage_breakdown

I agree completely that corn subsidies are out of control, but it's not clear that getting rid of corn would solve the health problem. It would likely be replaced with 'high fructose' <some other starch>. Fructose has properties (very sweet, doesn't crystallize like sucrose, etc.) that junk food purveyors love and corn doesn't even contain any fructose naturally.

Any starch + amylase makes a syrup (my personal favorite is rice syrup). An extra process turns part of the glucose to fructose making it very sweet.

Sorry to crap on a point I mostly agree with in the name of technical correctness :)

Right, if corn were not subsidized, corn syrup would probably not be wholly replaced with cane sugar, as cane sugar is much more expensive, a lot of it is imported, and it can't really be grown productively in most of the US--inside the US it's really only grown in Florida, Texas, and Hawaii.

The 89 million acres[1] of corn harvested in the US would be partly replaced by some other starchy crop x, and high fructose corn syrup would be partly replaced by high fructose x syrup.

The root problem is really the fact that we as a nation eat too much food, and too much cheap, high-carbohydrate, calorie-dense, processed food. I agree with cutting corn subsidies, but the real solution is on the demand side.

1: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornac....

> we as a nation eat too much food

I really don't know how to fix it, because it is more the subconscious drive to overeat when you can than any cultural issue. Food is plentiful and cheap, so Americans devour it incessantly. One thing I think could fix it is decoupling the social aspects of eating - most families only see each other for food, which prompts them to eat more if subconsciously they want more human interaction.

It is also known you eat more when you aren't happy, so obviously make people happier, which isn't something as a society we are doing much of.

> Food is plentiful and cheap, so Americans devour it incessantly.

This isn't really the case.

The problem is that the processed food we are creating is so abnormal, our bodies simply don't know how to respond to it. The overwhelming amount of health issues that we are experiencing as a nation is a direct result of this.

Your body has pre-configured "stop" signals based on volume and how full your stomach is. The processed foods are so dense in sugars and calories, your body responds improperly, and as a result, people "over eat".

If we revert to eating things that we can actually identify the contents of, you'll find that we will very quickly stop over eating.

> Food is plentiful and cheap

> most families only see each other for food

This happens in most European countries as well, it's by no means an American thing.

All these arguments could apply just as well to Japan, which has an obesity rate far, far lower than the US.

Sugar is only expensive because of the extreme tariffs the government places on it.

Exactly. Which reinforces the opposite of the grandparent of this comment. As usually happens, the problem is that somebody is using guns to force other people to do things in a non-rational way.

From 2008-2011:

- Average price of raw sugar, world market: $492.8 per tonne

- Average price of HFCS-55, US market: $528.1 per tonne (HFCS-55 has equivalent sweetness to sucrose.)

Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Why would you pay more money for an inferior product?

And remember -- the price of high-fructose corn syrup includes subsidies. In a free market, with no corn subsidies and no sugar tariffs, HFCS would be at an even greater price disadvantage.

Source: OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook, 2011-2020, p. 132. http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/4818429...

Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share.

Is there anything useful that can be derived from that experiment, though? The control group varies in significant ways, both amongst itself and w.r.t. Americans, and includes countries with both high and low levels of obesity. Has anyone attempted to back out any kind of useful estimate by treating this as a natural experiment and adjusting for confounds?

Examples: most sugar in both Germany and Mexico is from sugar rather than HFCS, but Germany is less obese than the US, while Mexico is more obese than the US. Mexico is poorer than either the US or Germany, so that could be the confound; but Germans walk and bike more than either the US or Mexico, so that could be a different confound. It's kind of a messy experiment.

I think the 'natural experiment' was in reference to the selection of HFCS over sugar for economics reasons. Not obesity.

You can't compare the US price of HFCS to the world price of raw sugar as it doesn't count the absurd US tariffs on it. When you count these in I'm pretty sure that HFCS is cheaper than sugar in the united states.

That's right, HFCS is slightly cheaper than raw sugar in the US because the government has extremely protective import quotas against world priced sugar. The invention of HFCS in the 1980s is a direct result of the U.S. sugar program. But if you allowed a free market for sugar in the U.S. the U.S. raw sugar price would equalize at the world sugar price, and it is likely that HFCS would disappear.

Also grown in Louisiana.

Corn is the US climate friendly equivalent of sugarcane. Sugar cane is the most harvested crop worldwide. Sugarcane has heavy import tariffs in the US as welfare for the domestic corn industry.

Brazil has a 22% Ethanol requirement on its gasoline and all that comes from sugar cane.

The previous three comments, from three different people, all seem to think that we're stuck with corn syrup because we can't grow enough sugarcane in the US.

But sugarcane is not the only way to produce sucrose!

Sugar beets currently account for 55% of sugar production in the United States. [1]

What's more, sugar beets will grow in relatively poor soil. Top four sugarbeet-producing states: Minnesota, Idaho, North Dakota, and Michigan [2].

Notice how these are not states renowned for the quality of their soil. Idaho grows a lot of potatoes not because they want to, but because the soil won't support a more valuable crop.

So, we're chewing up our best agricultural land and paying billions of dollars in subsidies to grow an inferior substitute to sucrose. Instead of growing the real thing on our marginal agricultural lands.

It's not even close.

Sources:

[1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/backgr...

[2] http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/CAFTA/statesugarprod...

Where beets are grown in MN and ND is actually some of the best land in the country. Sugar beet subsidies are an even bigger boondoggle than corn. As the beet welfare queens retire or die off their land is generally bought out by a larger concern and switched over to another cash crop like GMO free soybeans for the Japanese market.

If you were being paid more money to grow beets on land that could support soybeans, why wouldn't you grow beets? It's economically rational to the farmer who's getting subsidies -- even though it's economically irrational for the world as a whole.

Subsidies distort the market, and produce completely illogical results. You can't get rid of just one subsidy, because that just gives an advantage to the next-most-subsidized item. But remove all the subsidies, and things will return to an economically-rational state of affairs.

> You can't get rid of just one subsidy, because that just gives an advantage to the next-most-subsidized item.

If the total amount of subsidy $ is reduced, it will be an improvement.

I would be all about increasing reliance on sugar beet crops if it wasn't for one thing. Sugar beets have one of the highest utilizations of genetically modified seeds. If we are going to use mire of it lets get Monsanto out of the picture.

The other thing is most people don't realize how many things HFCS is in. Ketchup, iced tea, most cereals, most "fruit" drinks.

By the way,.Brazil gasoline alcoholis are currently US corn alcohol.

US subsidies to corn and subsidies to.any ethanol.resulted that selling cane ethanol to US and buying corn ethanol turns a profit for fuel.companies. Yes, it is that bad, diesel.pollution with shipping and all.

The problem in Brazil is more structural and political than it has to do with US corn subsidies. Through Petobras, the government kept gasoline prices artificially low for a long time and that severely hampered the ethanol producer because here in Brasil the ethanol prices are tied to the gasoline ones (an important part of the ethanol demand is the flex fuel cars that can choose between both fuels and if ethanol is above 70% of the cost of gasoline then gasoline becomes more cost effective).

So basically the ethanol infrastructure got all messed up to the point were it couldn't even keep up with the domestic supply. If it were not for that then brazilian ethanol would actually be able to compete with some of the american ethanol because sugar cane gives higher yields and nowadays you can charge a premium for being more environmentally friendly.

Be careful! Raising the price of a cheap good can drive consumers to buy less of a more expensive competing good, and therefore buy yet MORE of the now-less-expensive cheap good.

If corn gets more expensive, and that may mean that people need to squeexe their food budgets and buy fewers expensive foods like vegetables, and instead by more corn sugar, which is still cheapest per-calorie.

>The root problem is really the fact that we as a nation eat too much food,

It appears that people used to eat more food in the past. At least for Finland, modern Finns eat 40% less calories than they used to 100 years ago. The reason is that agriculture work demands a lot of calories.

But were Finns eating too much food 100 years ago? Probably not, considering their daily caloric expenditure at the time.

"Too much food" is of course relative to how much food your body needs, given how physically active you are.

But, I suspect that Americans on average both get less exercise and consume more calories than they did 100 years ago.

I think the point is that getting rid of the subsidies would let the price of HFCS increase and would be less attractive to food producers.

Regarding the idea that sucrose is healthier than HFCS, I remain unconvinced.

See Robert H. Lustig's awesome expostion, Sugar: The Bitter Truth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

He explains the endocrinology behind why our bodies cannot stay ahead of our sugar intake.

Saying sugar is healthier than HFCS is sort of like saying morphine is healthier than heroin. It may technically be true, but both will kill you eventually. That said, I agree that if the cost of sugar and HFCS were higher, it would no longer be cost effective to put it in bread. I think everyone can agree that HFCS and sugar probably shouldn't be in bread.

When I make bread at home, I put sugar in it to help the yeast grow.

Point taken, but the wheat in bread is not much better for you than the pure sugar...

I'm not a biologist, related from Lustig's video, probably incorrectly:

fructose + glucose = sucrose. Body needs glucose. Fructose goes straight to liver, metabolized like alcohol, a bunch of bad stuff happens. Reason fruits are better than fruit juice is the fiber blocks the fructose from being metabolized, letting the needed glucose through.

Eating straight refined sugar is probably almost as bad as HFCS. But other sources of sugar (in moderation) are proably fine.

FWIW, I add fruit into my morning kale smoothie, and it tastes delicious.

> Reason fruits are better than fruit juice is the fiber blocks the fructose from being metabolized, letting the needed glucose through.

Can we get a source on this? I'm very curious, because I eat a ton of fruit with a lot of fructose every day and this Lustig video has gotten me worried.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth is movie length but well worth watching.

I wouldn't call saying "sure, we would save hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but not much beyond that would change" to be shitting on the persons point that we should stop corn subsidies.

You can find the original paper at http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/HFCS_Rats_10.....

The statistics are a bit confusing to me, but it looks like they only find a significant difference for males over 8 weeks, not females over 7 months. The "significant" difference for males seems pretty small given that the rats started out weighing between 300 and 375 grams. And the conclusion doesn't mention sucrose at all:

In summary, rats maintained on a diet rich in HFCS for 6 or 7 months show abnormal weight gain, increased circulating TG and augmented fat deposition. All of these factors indicate obesity. Thus, over-consumption of HFCS could very well be a major factor in the “obesity epidemic,” which correlates with the upsurge in the use of HFCS.

Does anyone know if these results have been replicated anywhere?

You weren't the only one they confused. John Timmer at Ars Technica did an excellent writeup[1] about the study and the somewhat questionable aspects of their conclusions.

I would quote the relevant bits, but it's basically the entire article pointing out possible (and unaddressed) issues with the study:

"Although some of the results are suggestive, given the somewhat confusing and, in some cases, contradictory nature of the result, it would seem to be appropriate to interpret them with caution, and go back and start a larger population of rats on a study with a more consistent design. The authors haven't gone that route..."

[1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2010/03/does-high-fructose-co...

The short study and the long study apparently disagree about whether 12hr or 24hr access to HFCS results in more weight gain. The 8 wk study shows 12hr HFCS leading to much larger weight gain than any of the other groups, and 24hr access not being significantly different from sucrose or chow alone. But then reading the 8 wk number off the weight chart from the 6 month study shows 24hr access being ahead of 12hr access.

You asked if these results have been replicated anywhere--it seems like the beginning of their long study didn't even replicate their short study. This makes me seriously skeptical about the differences they report between HFCS and sucrose.

The only conclusion I would feel very comfortable drawing from this data is that giving rats access to sugar water for 6 months makes them fatter (Fig. 1). Finer distinctions than that seem unwarranted.

Agreed. The study is actually deceptive because they're drawing conclusions that aren't supported by their own results. My conclusion: bad science.

I don't understand the mechanism here. I thought sucrase, the enzyme that breaks down sucrose (table sugar) into 1 fructose and 1 glucose (same as HFCS), acted almost immediately -- at least on the timescale of nutrient absorption. Is it just short circuiting our sense of satiety? Maybe the raw fructose makes things sweeter and stimulates reward centers better?

I wonder where honey falls in all this since it has higher fructose than the most common 55% fructose HFCS blends.

We seem to know so little about all of this, but I think it's safe to say that both sugar and HFCS are bad in quantities that the common american is accustomed.

I find it's best to just avoid sweet foods all together, but if forced to choose I would take HFCS over artificial sweeteners any day of the week. Our bodies have been dealing with glucose and fructose for a very long time -- even on evolutionary time scales. The same can't be said for Sucralos, aspartame, or Acesulfame potassium.

Everything in the world is either overtly or subtly poisonous; the only question is, at what dose?

You sound like you are a paid shill. I know that you aren't, which disappoints me further, because I'd like to think that people are capable of educating themselves instead of spreading misinformation.

On your first paragraph, pondering whether sucrose breaks down into fructose and glucose immediately: No, it doesn't. HFCS makes sugars available to the bloodstream sooner, causing larger swings in overall blood sugar levels. Additionally, this study covers rats which were given strict diets; the idea that HFCS made them fatter because they ate more food is not borne out based on the experiment's premises.

Second paragraph: Irrelevant. Honey is not being discussed here. Additionally, you contradict yourself by noting (correctly) that HFCS is not half-and-half fructose and glucose, like sucrose.

Third paragraph: Inverted appeal to authority. You dismiss the information that science makes available, and then put your own opinion up for offering as if it is informed and accurate. You further confuse the issue by putting a well-accepted opinion (the diets of the USA are overly rich in sugars) next to a dismissal of this study.

Fourth paragraph: A delightful strawman, substituting artificial sweeteners for table sugar.

Fifth: More ignorance of the general study of nutrition, with a sweeping statement that is obviously true and yet completely uninformative.

Please go read the article before commenting further.

Yours has to be the most dickish comment on a comment I've ever read on HN. Congratulations. What is it that you've added to the conversation again ? Nothing.

As far as I can tell, everything he says is grounded in fact or is at least cogently supported. I intend to follow some of his pointers and read more.

On the other hand, your comment is strangely and unintentionally self referential.

The problem was that the comment starts out with that comment about being a paid shill, and then goes on to treat the comment it replies to as if it was a series of firm claims made to mislead, when it starts out with a bunch of questions, and draws some very limited conclusions on the belief that we know too little.

MostAwesomeDude could have started out answering the questions on the assumption they are honestly meant, without the attitude, and it would have come across a lot better.

My that was uncivil.

Why exactly do you believe it is warranted to reply in this tone? To me, regardless of the issue being discussed, this comment reflects extremely poorly on you.

First of all, I tend to agree with the sibling posts accusing you of failing to maintain scholarly decorum. The "paid shill" remark was uncalled for, even if I tend to agree with your criticisms (at least, all but the most crucial one).

> pondering whether sucrose breaks down into fructose and glucose immediately: No, it doesn't.

Can you substantiate this further (say, with an in-vivo sucrose half-life)? I don't have journal access at the moment, so the best I could find was this study: http://ajplegacy.physiology.org/content/59/1/413.extract which seems to support what you claim (only 90% inversion after 6.5 hours in rabbits), but I'd still like to see something more modern and preferably in humans.

> Additionally, this study covers rats which were given strict diets

Strict diets? It seems to me like they had unmeasured and uncontrolled access to chow and sugar solution ("controlled" only on the basis of availability time)! I tend to agree with the grandparent post that the observed results could be caused by the relative sweetness of HFCS driving the rats to continue consuming HFCS past the point where they would have stopped consuming sucrose solution. Since humans tend to consume drinks in fixed quantities (8oz, 16oz) not entirely chosen on the bases of satiety, I question the relevance of this study to human health.

> you contradict yourself by noting (correctly) that HFCS is not half-and-half fructose and glucose

You quibble. I'll take it back iff you substantiate the implicit claim (which occurs under the assumption that you weren't quibbling) that the 5% or 7% difference in sugar concentrations creates a disproportionate effect on energy output or weight gain.

In the paper, they state that they did daily measurements of chow and sugar drink intake. So the intake was mostly unregulated, but it was measured.

My bad, turns out I was completely wrong:

> There was no overall difference in total caloric intake (sugar plus chow) among the sucrose group and two HFCS groups.

Technically, I was right in that they didn't control overall intake, but they did prove that they didn't need to control overall intake so my alternative hypothesis was refuted in any case.

Here is a free article covering a study in humans comparing the pharmacokinetics of high-fructose corn syrup to those of sucrose [1]. Key figure showing blood concentrations of some sugars is here [2].

1 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306467/

2 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/t...

It is too bad that they lacked the resources to include sucrose in the long term study (because why not).

It's also confusing that they never discuss (as far as I have seen anyway) how they determined the levels of sweeteners in the sugar drinks. I would like to see a study where the drinks had equivalent calories/volume, I can see where rats with access to water might avoid syrup but prefer a less sweet sugar drink. Even given some good explanation for the different calorie loads, it would still be interesting to see how it factored in.

Wow. I think you severely miss-read my comment as some formal argument and you are holding it to a much higher standard than your own comment.

Your first paragraph is an ad hominem attack that is subsequently withdrawn adding nothing to the conversation.

I think you might have misread my questions for arguments. Questions have a symbol at the end: '?'. Also, sentences starting "I thought" are not formal arguments, but a highlight of the contrast between my past understanding and the article.

Also, in order for me to make such a contrast, wouldn't I have to read the article?

And just in case the attack at the beginning was serious, I would like to point out that the questions at the beginning of my post proposed two mechanisms whereby HFCS would be worse for you than sugar, which is what this study's results imply. That's hardly something a 'paid shill' would do.

The only argument I made, if I made one at all, is that just because HFCS is worse than sugar (as proposed by the article) doesn't mean that other sweeteners are good for you. This is likely an important thing to remember for all of those that will use this data when making decisions in their own lives.

I appreciate your asking the questions that a lot of people have when they hear that HFCS is "evil".

Generally, if people have been taught that there is more than one kind of sugar (yeah, I know), they learn about sucrose, glucose, and fructose, at most.

The name 'fructose' doesn't help clarify this situation. We are told that we (rightly) should eat more fruits and vegetables. But those juicy peaches and other fruits and fruitish foods (berries, etc.) are sweet.

As a result, we make a very direct connection between fructose and fruit, which is enough to create confusion about the HFCS messaging.[1] Points as well for knowing that honey contains a boatload of fructose. Honey's also good for us, or else they wouldn't point out that things are sweetened with honey instead of 'refined' sugar, right?

As with many issues, there's a bathtub curve of understanding. The completely ignorant and the very-slightly informed people are not confused. Nor are people with a high level of understanding about the combination of chemistry and human physiology.

It's that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" zone that has trouble. You have a better than average understanding of the chemistry and the biological processes, but are having trouble putting together the whole picture. How the heck are you going to advise your kids on what to eat without laying down fiat rules?

I think you were treated unfairly in the reply to your post but it does contain some useful information. For the last laugh[2], I would suggest that after you get the understanding you need on the issue, you write a post/page/paper on the topic, targeting your current self as an audience.

Post it here knowing that HN is a culmination of people who are in the bottom of that bathtub on just about every issue, with some awesome representation of the "heavily informed". You'll help a lot of people and get some actionable feedback.

Just filter out the emotion[3] and revise as needed and you'll have a citation handy the next time this sort of thing comes up. Then you'll be that guy on the right hand side of the curve and can have the last laugh by encouraging education instead of discouraging the exposure of innocent ignorance.

[1] The Corn Growers' Association has created some biased but unintentionally hilarious examples of pro-HFCS messaging.

http://sweetsurprise.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ-ByUx552s

[2] and because I am lazy and want people to do things for me

[3] OMFG, he didn't talk about sucralose, galactose, maltose, and zymurlose!

Actually, the article doesn't show that HFCS is worse than sugar - if you look at Table 1 you'll see that rats fed HFCS and sugar had the same weight-gain over the long term. However the article is slightly misleading in implying that HFCS is worse than sugar, even though their own results don't show that.

Bad science, move on. All the evidence we have shows that HFCS and sucrose are equally bad for you.

> Second paragraph: Irrelevant. Honey is not being discussed here.

No, it is NOT irrelevant. Testing with honey would be a natural followup to these kinds of experiments. It is entirely relevant for him to wonder about it.

You sound like you are a paid shill.

This kind of comment is never helpful to the community or to thoughtful discussion on Hacker News, and is a violation of the Hacker News guidelines.

He does not sound like a paid shill. He's asking perfectly valid questions.

>>>> You sound like you are a paid shill.

I'm sorry but starting with this you lost all credibility in my eyes immediately. Which would be no problem if you supported your statements with links to independent sources, but you did not.

When I want sweet foods I just seek out things made with sugar rather than HFCS. If all I can find is HFCS or artificial sweeteners, I have to wait. And have some water, most likely.

I haven't done any experiments. I've just noted that (a) imported Mexican Coke really does taste like I remember Coke tasting in my 1970s childhood, and (b) I drink less when I have a soda made with sugar because it satisfies my sweet tooth instead of just tickling it and reminding me that sweet things taste good, maybe I'll go get another one of the HFCS sodas I just drank.

Is there actually a published, peer-reviewed study available from this? This just seems like an in-progress summary. Additionally, as another poster commented, this is still correlative, not causative.

HFCS might be indirectly responsible for weight problems, but that's only because of its prominence, low price, and calorie dense-ness. Not some voodoo reason as this article states and as many believe.

Try this: http://examine.com/faq/is-hfcs-high-fructose-corn-syrup-wors...

The experiment's conclusions don't make sense either. There are dozens and dozens of studies showing ONLY net calorie intake is what is responsible for weight gain or weight loss, not the contents of what they eat: http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.htm...

So for the study to refute the conclusions we have arrived at today would be quite the breakthrough. Not to mention the whole part where it violates the laws of thermodynamics.

Can anyone link to a study (not an article) showing HFCS causing more weight gain in a calorie-controlled study that accounts for water weight and (preferably) doesn't have the people count their own calories?

Your rapport with the great Goog is weak. The study:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305710...

Reply by the Corn Refiners Association:

http://www.corn.org/princeton-hfcs-study-errors.html

Thermodynamics question: They were holding energy inputs constant in the system. Stored energy was not constant. What third variable could have been responsible for the difference? Rhymes with input.

Your second link is broken.

The study's conclusions are misleading. The total intake from food and the sweetened water were not matched for calories. The only thing matched for calories was the amount of sweetened water; rats were allowed to eat as much food as they want. They then drew all of these conclusions that aren't directly related to HFCS, but related to the fact that the rats were overeating.

It's still an interesting conclusion, but really the only thing they concluded was that rats consuming HFCS ate more food than rats consuming sugar. All of the other negative effects cannot be pinned on HFCS.

Where's the rampant fact-checking and criticism of major dietary studies I usually see on HN? Could this have anything to do with bias against high-fructose corn syrup, which is chemically almost identical to honey?

The LA Times reported on the study in depth, and there are some serious deficiencies.

> "After eight weeks, three groups of rats weighed essentially the same – the chow-only rats (462 grams on average), the 24-hour HFCS rats (470 grams) and the sugar-water rats (477 grams). But the rats that were able to drink the HFCS solution for 12 hours each day weighed in at an average of 502 grams, a difference that was deemed statistically significant."

> "Complicating things further, the researchers cite a related study of female rats that found no difference in weight gain between animals that consumed HFCS or sugar over an eight-week period."

>"the researchers found that rats allowed to drink the HFCS solution gained more weight over six months than rats with no access to a sweetened beverage. The difference was dramatic: rats with 24-hour access to HFCS gained 27% more weight than the rats stuck with chow only. But the researchers didn’t include a third group of rats with access to sugar, so it’s impossible to say whether HFCS was worse than regular sugar."*

>"The researchers remedied this problem in a third experiment involving female rats. Over a seven-month period, rats that were able to drink sugar water for 12 hours a day gained 183% of their body weight – the exact same amountas rats who could drink HFCS solution for 12 hours a day. However, female rats with 24-hour access to HFCS boosted their body weight by 200%. It’s not clear why high-fructose corn syrup was more fattening over an eight-week period when it was available for 12 hours of the day (but not 24), yet the opposite was true when the experiment lasted for seven months."

This is what happens when reporters don't understand what they're writing about.

*"(Why didn’t they test the long-term effects of sugar? The researchers said it wasn’t necessary because sugar consumption didn’t affect body weight in their first experiment. True, but neither did HFCS when made available for 24 hours a day, and they did test that.)"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/03/high-f...

Smart people like to know deep truths and secret histories. HFCS is a perfect fit, because it sets up an interesting systemic cause for obesity.

The problem with the HCFS-caused-population-obesity hypothesis is that it's immediately falsified by the rest of the developed world. Only the USA has HFCS in its food supply in any quantity because only the USA has corn politics.

But in spite of the absence of HFCS in the food supply of Britain and Australia, for example, we are following the same trajectory as the USA.

BMI is a lagging indicator of calories consumer per capita per year. And the exact food mix doesn't seem to matter. This is the kind of thing you would expect when combining basic physics with large sample sizes.

However, finding out that what you learnt in grade 3 (eat too much --> get fat) is still true is boring and lends no social status for being the leader on a new idea.

People just like to have a scapegoat for their health problems: MSG, gluten, GMO, etc. Better to blame the big bad corporation for making you fat than the fact that you like to eat lots of sugary shit and don't do any exercise.

Downvote LOL.

I would just like to point out that the photo in the article is the most staged "watch science happen!" photo I've seen in a long time.

"The rats in the Princeton study became obese by drinking high-fructose corn syrup, but not by drinking sucrose. The critical differences in appetite, metabolism and gene expression that underlie this phenomenon are yet to be discovered"

The whole thing is one big correlation confirmation. I was hoping to find something substantial that would explain the underlying cause.

I'm no expert on this, but it seems like they were studying the problem in the wrong way.

Instead of considering HFCS as a food, and measuring how it works on your body, why not consider HFCS as a drug, and measure how it works on your brain? I think the HFCS->obesity issue has a lot more to do with the way sugar affects our brains.

I think HFCS is detrimental to human survival because it has encouraged us to get all of our happiness from food, leading to overeating and eating to "feel better" (it never happens) in some portions of the population. Thus, we are at this obesity issue, which is really a happiness issue. From my own personal experience: When you believe in yourself and you want to change, obesity becomes less and less of a problem because you are motivated to work out, eat better and generally take care of yourself. But the fact remains that you once ingested a drug to feel happy which also made you fat. Now you are eating food the way you're supposed to and not really getting that happiness that was once supplied by the sugary foods you were eating. You must use other drugs, like meditation or even alcohol/marijuana, to supplant this "completeness" feeling that you are missing from the lack of sugary foods.

Eventually, your body will give up the tolerance to sugary foods and you'll find yourself drinking sodas and eating dessert much less than you used to. Now, the general level of HFCS in all of our foods is no longer affecting your body weight and the way you feel about yourself.

I don't want to sound like a commercial here, but in the last 2-3 years I've been very much aware of my sugar-rich diet and began to slowly wean myself off of the addiction, and I can happily say that I've gone from a size 40 to a size 36 waist and lost over 20 pounds in the last year alone by simply being aware of how sugar affects your mind AND body, getting more exercise, and eating smaller portions of healthier food.

Excellent point. Looking at HFCS as a drug that may cause some people to eat is more likely to yield the causation people are looking for.

But the caloric intake of both groups was the same. So even if the HFCS animals wanted to eat more, they weren't overeating or eating to "feel better" because they weren't permitted.

"Instead of considering HFCS as a food, and measuring how it works on your body, why not consider HFCS as a drug, and measure how it works on your brain?"

That does seem to be the major focus of this lab: Bart Hoebel is a psychology professor "who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction".

You're right, this was just research and wasn't attempting to explain the "why", just the "what happens".

Actually, all this proves is that some people on HN are idiots who can't be bothered to read the actual study. Remove the last two words of your title and your post would be technically correct (i.e the same title as the news article).

Male rats fed HFCS did have more weight gain than rats fed only chow. However there was no difference between rats fed HFCS and rats fed sucrose over the long-term. Please actually read the study and look at Table 1.

> 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.

I have my suspicions about HFCS, but what's not clear from the way this was written, and I suspect is the kicker here, is the access to line. Is it the same calorically balanced diet PLUS sucrose water or HFCS water, or is it the same calorically balanced diet INCLUDING sucrose water or HFCS water. The difference between the two of those is massive, and I would bet it's the former not the latter.

Wow, this blows my mind just a little bit. Especially since I've been wrong about this for so long even though this study has been out for years. I always thought that table sugar and HFCS were the same. 50/50 glucose to fructose (about). But then there's this:

"...as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized."

So with HFCS you're just free-basing fructose? Amazing. Maybe I have to stop making fun of this trend toward "NO HFCS! PURE CAN SUGAR!" that I've been writing off as nonsense until now...

Encourage your supermarket to carry Pepsi Throwback alongside their real Pepsi.

Or you could just drink water which is way healthier.

You could, except that water doesn't provide caffeine and real sugar, so presumably one is having a cola for its energy boost rather than its health.

I can't believe the smartest people on the planet here are arguing about this.

HFCS is cheaper than sugar because of the tariffs, but it is an equivalent substitute. No better, no worse.

Americans are getting fatter these days because the food industry (McDonald's as well as prepackaged foods) can make desirable, filling foods for a dollar or two.

If they needed to use sugar instead of HFCS, it would be about 10 cents more per dollar - big deal.

People like corn dogs and cake - it tastes good. So businesses have mass produced it enough to make it affordable to everyone.

The potatoes and beans of yesterday are cheap as well, but nobody wants them. That's why people are gaining weight.

Absolutely nothing to do with HFCS vs sugar - the food designers can use either one with the same effect.

It is carbohydrates and "low fat" diets making people obese. The only think unhealthy in a bacon cheeseburger is the bun.

Until we can kill this "low fat" nonsense, people will continue to get fatter.

The low-fat/high-fat argument is entirely dominated by pseudo-science.

Eat less. Be more active. Period.

I try to beat on this drum whenever I see people jump to conclusions, in studies, on the media, or on Hacker News, based off one study. The possibility for one study to be screwed up is so enormously high nobody should ever take one at face value.

To date, most studies that review the concept of "some foods make you fatter than others" vs "calories in vs calories out" consistently weigh in favor of "calories in vs calories out".

I always find www.sciencebasedmedicine.org to be a great resource for this. Also, the podcast Skeptics Guide to the Universe is really fun, and they talk about things like this all the time.

I haven't looked yet but I would like to see experiments that look at how varying amounts of HFCS cause extra weight. It could be that even a small amount (over time or not) damages something and then causes weight gain or it could just be that they have more accessible calories.

I'd also like to see an experiment about the reversibility of the weight loss. If you get them fat on HFCS and then switch to regular sucrose do they end up looking like the rats that had sucrose the whole time.

We did a little human testing on our fraternal twin infants. The slightly smaller of the two was fed formula which had HFCS as an ingredient, the other was fed formula not containing HFCS as the sweetener. Our smaller son quickly gained more weight and started to outweigh his brother by a pound. The (initially) smaller twin still outweighs his brother. They are now ~21 lbs and 19 lbs respectively @11mo

Anecdote. There could have been other differences between the formulas, the children could have varied in weight naturally, or there could be other factors you didn't control for.

High-fructose corn syrup and ethanol, with increasing push back against farm subsidies due to tax payers and trade agreements, these are the loopholes used.

I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the single biggest change I have made is avoiding products with hfcs, going very well and lost 30 pounds.

I have always hated the campaign by CRA for HFCS like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ-ByUx552s

Not to mention it's GMO corn being used! You might as well poke holes in the lining of your stomach.

If we take selective breeding, inbreeding, and hybridization into account, corn (maize) is one of the most genetically manipulated foods on the planet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25creature.html?_r...

[citation needed]

Funny how I get -2 because people are to lazy to look things up on their own...

I've also noticed people feel threatened when you talk about their food.

[http://www.unionccs.net/images/library/file/Agricultura_y_al...] [http://geneticroulettemovie.com/]

There are a lot more...

Wake up people, they care about making money not your health!

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