New data: High-fructose corn syrup no worse than sugar

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Source: USA Today

In 2004, three researchers published a paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggesting the rise in obesity might be linked to the rise in consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. The paper led to a wave of research and a chorus of popular concern over the cheap, ubiquitous liquid sweetener.

The hypothesis was controversial and launched a backlash against the corn-based sweetener, which because of agricultural subsidies for corn in the USA was much cheaper than cane or beet sugar. It became nutritional dogma in some circles that sugar was healthy, and high-fructose corn syrup was not.

Now, the tide of research, if not public opinion, has shifted. This week, five papers published in a supplement to Clinical Nutrition find no special link between consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity. One paper was written by Barry Popkin, a co-author on the original 2004 paper.

"It doesn't appear that when you consume high-fructose corn syrup, you have any different total effect on appetite than if you consume any other sugar," he says.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-12-08-fructose-corn-syrup_N.htm