High Fructose Diet Linked to Obesity

Everyday, something new is discovered that is believed to be a major contributor to the ever increasing obesity rate that is plaguing America. Right now the U.S. per capita obesity rate exceeds 25%. That means one out of every four Americans is obese. Environmental contaminants and the chemicals used to improve, package, and flavor processed foods always appear high on the list as major causes. For every scientific report published that places blame for the epidemic obesity crisis America is currently experiencing on a chemical substance or process, hundreds of reports disclaiming the accusations are published by the manufacturer, along with U.S. Food and Drug Administration disclaimer that human test data do not concur with those findings, and every major broadcast media promotes a special reports, further touting the benefits far out weigh the bad banner.

Such is the situation with the latest reports concerning High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Read the ingredients listed on the label of every processed food package you have in your house right now. You are almost guaranteed to always find High Fructose Corn Syrup listed among the ingredients. HFCS is the number one sweetener used in America today. It generates income in excess of 4.5 billion dollar annually and it is estimated that nearly every American consumer ingest an average of 62 pounds of it a year.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has not always been a part of the American diet. It was not until the early 1970s was it created and begin showing up as a processed food ingredient, thus becoming a regular fixture to the American diet. It was immediately after this that America's obesity epidemics begin to accelerate at great speed. It is believed that leptin resistance is the reason. Leptin is a vital human hormone that regulates eating. When a species is resistant to leptin, they consume much more food. Until recently, there had not been any valid studies performed linking HFCS to obesity. The University of Florida recently completed a study.

The conclusion of the study was that a diet high in fructose caused obesity in rats. The University of Florida report is the first of its kind which confirms there is a direct link between fructose and obesity. It showed the rats that were fed a high fructose diet became leptin resistant. Two groups of rats were studied. One group was fed a high fructose diet and the other group was fed a non fructose diet. This was administered to the rats for six months. At the end of that period, both groups were switched to a high fat food plan, similar to the average American's diet. The rats fed the high fructose diet became significantly fatter than the rats fed the non fructose diet. Further, the high fructose fed rats tested to be leptin resistant and consistently ate much more of the food provided than the non fructose fed group.

No scientific human studies have been performed at this time. As with all animal studies, disclaimers regarding the difference in the species metabolism, genes, and DNA make up, will be disclosed to discredit these findings. But taking the devil's advocate stance; what if you owned a business that sold a consumable products? Naturally, the American free enterprise system encourages you to create profits for your business by any means necessary. You learn by means of a little slight of hand, chemical alteration, that you can get your customer base to increase their consumption of your product. The more they consume, the more they buy. The more they buy the greater profit your business earns. Could that be what we are observing?

Resource: Recent Study Links High Fructose Diets and Obesity by Lee A. Evslin, M.D. - http://realfooddiet.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-study-links-high-fructose-diets-and.html