Issues: Follow-up, HFCS and Mercury

Well, here I am back at my favorite topic. Over at my first post on the health effects of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) a commenter brought up the topic of mercury in HFCS. I did a little research and thought the results were interesting enough to warrant a follow-up post. I am presenting an opposing conclusion from the comment left, I am really grateful for the response, and hope I will get more.

On mercury in HFCS, there were two studies done in Jan of 2009, one peer reviewed, by Dufault et. al. in Environmental Health. The other was by Wallinga et al. at the Institute for Agriculture Trade Policy. Wallinga was actually an author on both papers.

The Dufault paper measured the mercury levels in HFCS samples from three manufacturers, and found levels as high as 570 part-per-billion (ppb), with a third of the samples above 100 ppb. A study by Health Canada shows that many common foods have 1-5 ppb levels of mercury, and fish typically are the largest contributor to mercury in our diet with 25-100 ppb levels common. The acceptable level of mercury in drinking water is 2 ppb. At average American consumption of HFCS of 50 g/day, HFCS contaminated to 500 ppm mercury could supply as much mercury as dental fillings or certain mercury containing vaccines, both of which are not recommended for pregnant women or small children, but at the same time are not areas of concern for health toxicity.

Issues: High Fructose Corn Syrup: Part 2

What's in Your Diet

Yesterday, I wrote about the current research on high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), how there is an ongoing but unclear debate on whether HFCS is any worse for your health than sugar, and that scientists point to sweeteners and lack of exercise for Americans' trouble with obesity. One thing that comes up is whether HFCS and other sweeteners are becoming more common in our food. So, today I decided to perform an extremely unscientific experiment involving my own diet. After my latest grocery shopping trip, I went through the ingredient list of each item I purchased. I tracked which contained HFCS, sugar, both or neither. Results are below, with notes (S,H,D indicate order of ingredients of Sugar, HFCS, and Dextrose):

High Fructose Corn Syrup	Sugar	Neither	Both
Hot Dog Buns	Bread	Potato Chips	Cookies (D,H,S)
Hot Dogs (less than 2% H, more than 2% D)	Hot Pockets	Milk	Lemonade (H,S)
Pickles	Pasta Sauce	Cheese	Yogurt (S,H)
Stuffing Mix	Flavored Rice Mix	Ground Beef	Ice Cream**
	Tortillas (last ingredient)	Chicken
	Chocolate Bar	Fruits… Assorted
	Brownie Mix	Vegtables…Assorted
	Chicken Helper*

*Within the half dozen varieties of Chicken/Hamburger Helper (they were on sale) some listed sugar as high as the third ingredient, while others had none.

**Second to the lemonade, ice cream might be the best way to fill up on sweeteners. After cream and milk, the ingredients are, in order: sucrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sugar.

There are a few things to point out here, but several ways to interpret the results. Remember this experiment is not designed to draw any scientific conclusions.

Issue: High Fructose Corn Syrup: Part 1

Today is the first part of a topic that grew in length as I was writing until I decided to split it into two parts. This is my first try investigating some issue facing people in the world, something that you may have an opinion about. Feel free to share your thoughts and observations in the comments. Come back tomorrow for part 2 which includes an experiment you can do on your own.
 
A Growing Problem

US Obesity and Overweight Rates

The United States is overweight. Not the land geographically, though it is quite massive, but the people who live there. The level of obesity has been climbing for the last three decades, though it has shown signs of slowing down. Two in three Americans are overweight, and the obvious place to look for answers is in our diet. One ingredient has stood out as a poster child for the growing problem. High Fructose Corn Syrup, or HFCS. I wanted to check out the claims and research, and see if I could clear up what we know about HFCS.
 
There are two discussions involved here. One is whether HFCS is less healthy than other sweeteners, such as sugar. The other is whether the obesity problem in the United States is tied to increased use of sweeteners in general.
 
The Unhealthier Sugar?

To tackle the first, it helps to compare HFCS to sugar chemically. HFCS, a thick liquid made from corn, is a mixture of fructose and glucose molecules, usually in a 55%-45% ratio with more fructose. Sugar is sucrose, found in your grocery store as crystals of table sugar. Chemically, sucrose is a fructose molecule joined to a glucose molecule. These are broken apart in the stomach and small intestine and absorbed. So sugar breaks down to nearly the same half-half mix of fructose and glucose that you get from HFCS.