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High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

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Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#81

Post by _delirium »

tanzam75 wrote: post #72
kansface wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is only expensive because of the extreme tariffs the government places on it.

From 2008-2011: - Average price of raw sugar, world market: $492.8 per tonne - Average price of HFCS-55, US market: $528.1 per tonne (HFCS-55 has equivalent sweetness to sucrose.) Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Why would you pay more money for an inferior product? A…

Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share.

Is there anything useful that can be derived from that experiment, though? The control group varies in significant ways, both amongst itself and w.r.t. Americans, and includes countries with both high and low levels of obesity. Has anyone attempted to back out any kind of useful estimate by treating this as a natural experiment and adjusting for confounds?

Examples: most sugar in both Germany and Mexico is from sugar rather than HFCS, but Germany is less obese than the US, while Mexico is more obese than the US. Mexico is poorer than either the US or Germany, so that could be the confound; but Germans walk and bike more than either the US or Mexico, so that could be a different confound. It's kind of a messy experiment.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#82

Post by btilly »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #71
justin66 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly false. I'll try to explain. If subsidization of farmers to produce more than the market is predicted to demand in order to smooth out volatility and prevent famine is necessary (and it seems to me like a laudable goal), government can simply fund overseas farmers to overproduce, rather than its own. It would be less expensive than the current process in those cases where overseas farmers produce more c…

I'm not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. It seems to me to be on par in terms of quality with the rest of the thread. Sure, there's no hard evidence given with any assertion, but there aren't really in the immediate ancestors either. This just seems to be an unpopular view, but I think that it's better to offer a counterargument than to downvote in that case, especially since downvoting visually deemphasiz…

I think it is getting downvoted because it waves its hands in response to a specific, easily verifiable, claim. And worse yet, waves its hands with weak arguments.

I claimed that the price of agricultural goods is inelastic. That's easy to verify one way or another. In 2011 the world produced 5% less of basic staples than normal. Prices of basic food staples doubled worldwide. Many countries had riots as a result. There you go, price inelasticity in action. (In fact the inelasticity of demand to price for food is the standard textbook example of price inelasticity.)

See http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/soaring-food-pri... for verification of the 2011 food price claim.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#83

Post by pkulak »

Wow, this blows my mind just a little bit. Especially since I've been wrong about this for so long even though this study has been out for years. I always thought that table sugar and HFCS were the same. 50/50 glucose to fructose (about). But then there's this:

"...as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized."

So with HFCS you're just free-basing fructose? Amazing. Maybe I have to stop making fun of this trend toward "NO HFCS! PURE CAN SUGAR!" that I've been writing off as nonsense until now...

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#84

Post by paulyg »

tanzam75 wrote: post #67
Azulsky wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also grown in Louisiana. Corn is the US climate friendly equivalent of sugarcane. Sugar cane is the most harvested crop worldwide. Sugarcane has heavy import tariffs in the US as welfare for the domestic corn industry. Brazil has a 22% Ethanol requirement on its gasoline and all that comes from sugar cane.

The previous three comments, from three different people, all seem to think that we're stuck with corn syrup because we can't grow enough sugarcane in the US. But sugarcane is not the only way to produce sucrose! Sugar beets currently account for 55% of sugar production in the United States. [1] What's more, sugar beets will grow in relatively poor soil. Top four sugarbeet-producing states: Minnesota, Idaho, North Da…

I would be all about increasing reliance on sugar beet crops if it wasn't for one thing. Sugar beets have one of the highest utilizations of genetically modified seeds. If we are going to use mire of it lets get Monsanto out of the picture.

The other thing is most people don't realize how many things HFCS is in. Ketchup, iced tea, most cereals, most "fruit" drinks.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#85

Post by Khelavaster »

Where's the rampant fact-checking and criticism of major dietary studies I usually see on HN? Could this have anything to do with bias against high-fructose corn syrup, which is chemically almost identical to honey?

The LA Times reported on the study in depth, and there are some serious deficiencies.

> "After eight weeks, three groups of rats weighed essentially the same – the chow-only rats (462 grams on average), the 24-hour HFCS rats (470 grams) and the sugar-water rats (477 grams). But the rats that were able to drink the HFCS solution for 12 hours each day weighed in at an average of 502 grams, a difference that was deemed statistically significant."

> "Complicating things further, the researchers cite a related study of female rats that found no difference in weight gain between animals that consumed HFCS or sugar over an eight-week period."

>"the researchers found that rats allowed to drink the HFCS solution gained more weight over six months than rats with no access to a sweetened beverage. The difference was dramatic: rats with 24-hour access to HFCS gained 27% more weight than the rats stuck with chow only. But the researchers didn’t include a third group of rats with access to sugar, so it’s impossible to say whether HFCS was worse than regular sugar."*

>"The researchers remedied this problem in a third experiment involving female rats. Over a seven-month period, rats that were able to drink sugar water for 12 hours a day gained 183% of their body weight – the exact same amountas rats who could drink HFCS solution for 12 hours a day. However, female rats with 24-hour access to HFCS boosted their body weight by 200%. It’s not clear why high-fructose corn syrup was more fattening over an eight-week period when it was available for 12 hours of the day (but not 24), yet the opposite was true when the experiment lasted for seven months."

This is what happens when reporters don't understand what they're writing about.

*"(Why didn’t they test the long-term effects of sugar? The researchers said it wasn’t necessary because sugar consumption didn’t affect body weight in their first experiment. True, but neither did HFCS when made available for 24 hours a day, and they did test that.)"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/03/high-f...

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#86

Post by justin66 »

btilly wrote: post #80
justin66 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly false. I'll try to explain. If subsidization of farmers to produce more than the market is predicted to demand in order to smooth out volatility and prevent famine is necessary (and it seems to me like a laudable goal), government can simply fund overseas farmers to overproduce, rather than its own. It would be less expensive than the current process in those cases where overseas farmers produce more c…

This is mostly false. I'll try to explain. I don't believe it is false. Instead of explaining again, can you provide specific verifiable assertions and citations? I'll make it easy, I'll give you specifics to refute. If subsidization of farmers to produce more than the market is predicted to demand in order to smooth out volatility and prevent famine is necessary (and it seems to me like a laudable goal), government…

> The truth is that it is easier for most governments to justify giving subsidies to their own citizens rather than foreign countries.

I don't disagree with that statement at all. It is a statement that only speaks to public sentiment and it strikes me as probably correct.

> Also self-sufficiency on food is seen by many as a security issue, and therefore there is a resistance to relying on others.

I don't disagree but I suspect there's little actual analysis going on among most people as to the actual tradeoff: the current system means we have an agricultural system that can carry us if we have to fight a world war capable of completely disrupting world food markets, as we are a net exporter of food. On the other hand strife, terrorism, and small wars are more likely until the developing world actually leaves extreme poverty behind. Having to compete with subsidized agriculture in the developed world slows this process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#Poverty_i...

> The USA pays people to keep land ready but unused so that production can rapidly improve.

The only guy I know who gets one of those subsidy checks because he owns land will never, ever be a farmer. His yard was farmland once. Interesting system.

> The European Union instead accumulates surpluses - aka the famous "butter mountains" and "milk lakes". Those are just different means to the same end - ensuring that there won't be a major famine.

The policy contributes to poverty and famine in Africa. Ideally we would find a way to mitigate famine risk here without sticking it to them.

> The US policies started earlier, and were motivated by the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

I can't speak to European policy but the incentives and politics today in the US (in the area of agriculture, and everything else) are radically different than they were eighty years ago. Still, I take your point and thanks for sharing that.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#87

Post by aptwebapps »

_delirium wrote: post #81
tanzam75 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From 2008-2011: - Average price of raw sugar, world market: $492.8 per tonne - Average price of HFCS-55, US market: $528.1 per tonne (HFCS-55 has equivalent sweetness to sucrose.) Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Why would you pay more money for an inferior product? A…

Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Is there anything useful that can be derived from that experiment, though? The control group varies in significant ways, both amongst itself and w.r.t. Americans, and includes countries with both high and low levels of obesity. Has any…

I think the 'natural experiment' was in reference to the selection of HFCS over sugar for economics reasons. Not obesity.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#88

Post by justin66 »

btilly wrote: post #82
shawn-furyan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. It seems to me to be on par in terms of quality with the rest of the thread. Sure, there's no hard evidence given with any assertion, but there aren't really in the immediate ancestors either. This just seems to be an unpopular view, but I think that it's better to offer a counterargument than to downvote in that case, especially since downvoting visually deemphasiz…

I think it is getting downvoted because it waves its hands in response to a specific, easily verifiable, claim. And worse yet, waves its hands with weak arguments. I claimed that the price of agricultural goods is inelastic. That's easy to verify one way or another. In 2011 the world produced 5% less of basic staples than normal. Prices of basic food staples doubled worldwide. Many countries had riots as a result. Th…

> I think it is getting downvoted because it waves its hands in response to a specific, easily verifiable, claim.

Odd. I thought the issue of elasticity was uninteresting and didn't really intend to comment on it.

In any case, you're giving downvoters a little too much credit. "Hulk disagree! Hulk smash, downvote!"

> See http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/soaring-food-pri.... for verification of the 2011 food price claim.

For a good time, google "krugman agricultural subsidies".

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#89

Post by jacques_chester »

Khelavaster wrote: post #85

Where's the rampant fact-checking and criticism of major dietary studies I usually see on HN? Could this have anything to do with bias against high-fructose corn syrup, which is chemically almost identical to honey? The LA Times reported on the study in depth, and there are some serious deficiencies. > "After eight weeks, three groups of rats weighed essentially the same – the chow-only rats (462 grams on average), t…

Smart people like to know deep truths and secret histories. HFCS is a perfect fit, because it sets up an interesting systemic cause for obesity.

The problem with the HCFS-caused-population-obesity hypothesis is that it's immediately falsified by the rest of the developed world. Only the USA has HFCS in its food supply in any quantity because only the USA has corn politics.

But in spite of the absence of HFCS in the food supply of Britain and Australia, for example, we are following the same trajectory as the USA.

BMI is a lagging indicator of calories consumer per capita per year. And the exact food mix doesn't seem to matter. This is the kind of thing you would expect when combining basic physics with large sample sizes.

However, finding out that what you learnt in grade 3 (eat too much --> get fat) is still true is boring and lends no social status for being the leader on a new idea.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#90

Post by __--__ »

colinprince wrote: post #46
buddylw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely that corn subsidies are out of control, but it's not clear that getting rid of corn would solve the health problem. It would likely be replaced with 'high fructose' . Fructose has properties (very sweet, doesn't crystallize like sucrose, etc.) that junk food purveyors love and corn doesn't even contain any fructose naturally. Any starch + amylase makes a syrup (my personal favorite is rice syrup).…

I think the point is that getting rid of the subsidies would let the price of HFCS increase and would be less attractive to food producers. Regarding the idea that sucrose is healthier than HFCS, I remain unconvinced. See Robert H. Lustig's awesome expostion, Sugar: The Bitter Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM He explains the endocrinology behind why our bodies cannot stay ahead of our sugar intake.

Saying sugar is healthier than HFCS is sort of like saying morphine is healthier than heroin. It may technically be true, but both will kill you eventually. That said, I agree that if the cost of sugar and HFCS were higher, it would no longer be cost effective to put it in bread. I think everyone can agree that HFCS and sugar probably shouldn't be in bread.
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