Comments on: Sugar-coated Mercury Contamination

By: Amanda Bensen

Amanda Bensen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:15:18 +0000

Linwood, thanks for your commment. You’re right, it’s technically the excess calories that lead to obesity (thus increasing diabetes risk) but I think it’s clear that those excess calories in the American diet are mostly coming from sugars. And as those articles note, some studies suggest that the body processes fructose less favorably than other forms of sugar, treating it rather like fat. But yes, the jury’s still out on that.

Ultimately, I’m for eating less sugar in general (though not necessarily treating it like a drug — see my earlier post on that here): http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2009/01/06/should-sugar-be-a-controlled-substance/

By: Linwood Boomer

Linwood Boomer — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:58:26 +0000

Amanda-
“But I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try phasing high-fructose corn syrup out of our diets, either, since it can lead to obesity and a higher risk of diabetes.”

I read both the articles you linked to with the words ‘diabetes’ and ‘obesity’, and they both were very, very clear that they don’t know or even strongly suspect the HFCS (in and of itself) leads to those conditions. They both said, very very clearly, that the calories in soda pop were the problem.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike HFCS (and cane sugar, and butter), but the passage quoted above feels like a bit of a reach.