John

My mother has diabetes as does most of the family on her side. Growing up in high school I’d routinely drink 2 liters of mountain dew (I was even known as the mountain dew kid) and now I’ve done a complete 180. When I got into bodybuilding, I learned a lot about health and losing weight and when you realize how prevelant HFCS is and how deadly it can potentially be.. it’s startling to say the least.

I love ketchup.. Love it. It goes on everything and in liberal amounts. I’ve gone to diet soda, gone to whole grain bread, and eliminated HFCS almost completely from my diet and the diet for my kids. But ketchup… :(

Luckily, Heinz recently released a “one carb” ketchup that cuts the amount of sugar down from 4g per teaspoon to 1g!

So if you’re a fellow lover of the red paste, check it out :) It’s a tad bit more expensive, but I feel MUCH less guilty enjoying some tasty, tart, tomato topping on my foods now!

Luckily the community is becoming much more aware of the danger in HFCS and we’re starting to see laws put into place like here in Arizona where the schools can no longer serve certain foods in the vending machines. It cuts into the school’s budget, but it also keeps young kids from consuming a calorie/sugar laden diet when at school.

..and yes, I apprecaite you took the time to look up other references. And I agree with the conclusion that “HFCS” is bad stuff.

In essence what I am saying is that no research exists (at least that I can find) states that

“HFCS is a causal factor in the ‘creation’ of diabetes”

Again, obseity is> a factor in Type 2 diabetes diagnosis , and therefore any substance that contributes to obseity,can be said to contribute to Type 2 diabetes.

The strongest text I coud find from your citation was:

Considerable evidence is now accumulating that these reactive carbonyl products are also involved in the progression of diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, atherosclerosis, diabetic complications, reperfusion after ischemic injury, hypertension, and inflammation

..keyword for me being progression of these diseases. Sure, if I continue to consume sugar (specifically HFCS) and I have diabetes, my diabetes will get worse..again this is no big shock. Every diabetic I have known (and there are lots in my family), has “cheated” now and again and are currently feeling the consquences. Sugar of any kind if left floating around in the body without insulin, will undoubtably due damange. The same is true for any consumed substance that the body does not rid itself off.

Research has found a direct scientific co-relation between smoking and cancer. (ie: each cigarette increases your probability of cancer).

If a similar study were conducted where (of a suffiicient sample size) that drew a co-relation between HFCS consumption and becoming diabetic, then I would agree with the conclusion.

Until then, all we can say for certain is HFCS is bad stuff that causes tissue damage similar to the tissue damange found from complications of those with diabetes. Reprashing the conclusion to “HFCS may cause diabetes” is (as of yet) unfounded…

You may be able to get away with “HFCS is linked to diabetes” only in as much as “obseity is linked to Type 2 diabetes”, but then so are any other things linked to obseity. (and there’s lots of them)

I’m sorry to hear that you have Diabetes. I know that sucks!

You are, of course, correct in pointing out that this is not definitive research. But let’s not forget that there are massive industries supporting HFCS for profit reasons, just like the cigarette industry. So I wouldn’t write the causality off just yet. And let’s not just limit our discussion to drinks since my own research at the store indicates that we’re consuming this crap in just about every single meal we eat.

Indeed, it would be impossible for you to determine if your own diabetes was at least partially to blame on HFCS because you’ve probably been consuming it for the last 20 years. In fact, don’t you find it interesting that during the last 20 years the total number of people with diabetes worldwide has risen from 30 million to 230 million? And this happens immediately after the invention and adoption of high-fructose corn syrup?

The article also said:

“He found ‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage,”

Separate research suggests:

Reactive aldehydes and ketones are produced as a result of oxidative stress in several disease processes. Considerable evidence is now accumulating that these reactive carbonyl products are also involved in the progression of diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, atherosclerosis, diabetic complications, reperfusion after ischemic injury, hypertension, and inflammation.

If you feel comfortable with more scientific research, here is an article by the National Institute of Health which, as I understand it, discusses how carbonals do damage.

Bottom line though is that the original article I referenced did not include enough information about why this is bad, but instead made the assumption we would all understand. Now, I’m neither a physician nor a nutritionist but when I see the scientific community using language such as “undesirable and highly-reactive compounds” referring to something I pour into my body every day it makes me want to stop. :-)

John

I find this very often when anything with the word “diabetes” is spread the words (weather intentional) or not can be misleading.

First off, let me say that I don’t think any refined sugar product (or by-product) is really “good”. We tend to live in a society where refined sugar is added to everything. This no doubt would contribute to ongoing obesity. The human body (at various weight levels) can only tolerate a certain amounts of sugar. In general, the more you weight the harder your body works to make insulin and the less efficient that insulin may be at helping the sugar get into your cells. The amount of sugar that a person can consume various from person to person, those who have a low tolerance are labeled with “Type 2″ diabetes.

So in theory, any factor which contributes to obesity could contribute to Type 2 diabetes. This comes as no big shock to me.

As for type I diabetes (which normally occurs in children, but not in my case). What happens is that the insulin producing cells “die” and the body does not re-generate them (like braincells). When there are less than 3% of the cells remaining you become diabetic (Type I). I found nothing in Chi-Tang Ho’s study that suggested that reactive carbonyls destroy insulin producing cells, only that they may be responsible for damaging tissues which might decrease the effectiveness of insulin the body.

The only specific text I noted about diabetes was

“Reactive carbonyls also are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes and linked to the complications of that disease. Based on the study data, Ho estimates that a single can of soda contains about five times the concentration of reactive carbonyls than the concentration found in the blood of an adult person with diabetes. ”

So a possible conclusion to be reached from this is that drinking a lot of non-diet soda may cause the same (or worse complications) then an adult with diabetes.

I could find nothing that suggested that the consumption of high glucose, refined sugar or any such by-products was a “causal” factor for diabetes, merely that people who consume such foods are at a similar (or higher risk) for developing the same complications as diabetes (kidney disease, blindness, high blood pressure, heart disease…oh and impotence as well).

Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, just wanted to set the record straight and remove any mis-understandings.

..And for completely selfish reasons please go now to your nearest diabetes association (Canda http://www.diabetes.ca/) (US: http://www.diabetes.org/) and give generously, because diabetes sucks and I want a cure. Of course you’ll be helping others as well ;-)