 mix of glucose and fructose but with a higher percentage of fructose. The sugars in high fructose corn syrup are not bonded together.
High fructose corn syrup is less expensive to make and also preserves foods and soft drinks longer than glucose can. It did not exist until 1996. It tastes sweeter and adds to food texture. Because of this, food manufacturers prefer high fructose corn syrup to other sweeteners. All popular nondiet soft drinks are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.
All sugars have the same caloric content but the effect on metabolism and hormones may be different. A recent study attempted to look how our bodies may differently metabolize some sugars:
In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dr. Peter J. Havel, professor of nutrition at the University of California at Davis, randomly assigned 32 overweight or obese men and women to drink three daily servings — 25 percent of their daily energy requirements — of a glucose- or fructose-sweetened beverage for 10 weeks. At the end of the study period, both groups had gained similar amounts of weight, but those consuming fructose-sweetened drinks showed an increase in intra-abdominal fat, the kind that embeds itself between tissues in organs. These individuals also became less sensitive to insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar, and they had elevated levels of fat in the blood. The fructose group also showed increased fat production in the liver, elevated “bad” cholesterol and larger increases in blood triglycerides. The group drinking glucose-sweetened beverages showed none of these changes.
Americans’ obesity problem started about the same time that high fructose corn syrup came on the market. It is this association that has led some nutritionists to want to study if high fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently than regular sugar. Unfortunately there is not much funding for this type of research and therefore there are not many studies. Also, there are some studies that seem to come to the opposite conclusion, that high fructose co