Study Blames Corn Syrup for Rise of Diabetes in US

Interesting...

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Corn syrup and other refined foods may
be much to blame for the huge increase in type-2 diabetes in
the United States over the past few decades, U.S. researchers
said on Thursday.


A study of nearly 100 years of data on what Americans eat show
a huge increase in processed carbohydrates, especially corn
syrup, and a large drop in the amount of fiber from whole
grains, fruits and vegetables.


It parallels a spike in the number of cases of type-2
diabetes, caused by the body's increasing inability to
properly metabolize sugars.


"We are seeing this big jump in the number of calories," that
people are eating, Dr. Lee Gross, a family physician at the
Inter-Medic Medical Group in North Port, Florida, who led the
study, said in a telephone interview.


"We tried to break down where are these calories coming from?
We have heard everyone debating is it because of fat, is it
because of carbohydrate and it is not really clear," Gross
added.


"This shows the increase in the past 20 years is almost
exclusively carbohydrates and certainly corn syrup consumption
has increased dramatically."


Gross said he was not "picking on the corn syrup industry,"
but added, "It is hard to ignore the fact that 20 percent of
our carbohydrates are coming from corn syrup -- 10 percent of
our total calories."


An estimated 16 million Americans have type-2 diabetes, the
sixth leading cause of death overall. And many studies have
linked a high intake of refined carbohydrates and other foods
with a high "glycemic index" with the development of diabetes.


SPIKES IN INSULIN


Foods with a high glycemic index cause a spike in insulin
production. Many experts agree that, over time, repeatedly
eating foods in this pattern can cause insulin resistance,
which in turn leads to diabetes.


Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (news -
web sites), Gross and colleagues said they used data from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites) and Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) to show
that people have eaten about the same amount of carbohydrates
a day on average -- 500 grams -- since 1909.


But instead of whole grains and vegetables, people are getting
more and more of those carbs in the form of processed grains
and sugars -- most of all, in corn syrup, they said.


Gross, with colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health
and the CDC, found that starting in 1980, people started
consuming steadily more calories, with an average increase in
total calories of 500 calories a day.


"Specifically, 428 calories (nearly 80 percent of the increase
in total energy) came from carbohydrates," they wrote.


Gross said people are probably not eating all those 500
calories. Some could be wasted. "It's an estimate. It's hard
to interpret," he said.


But the trend was clear.


"During the same period, the prevalence of type-2 diabetes
increased by 47 percent and the prevalence of obesity
increased by 80 percent," they wrote.


Audrae Erickson, President of the Corn Refiners Association,
called the report misleading.

"Diabetes rates are rising in many countries around the world
that use little or no high fructose corn syrup in foods and
beverages, which supports findings by the Centers for Disease
Control and the American Diabetes Association that the primary
causes of diabetes are obesity, advancing age and heredity,"
she said in a statement