Rise in obesity comes with rise in sweetner

Researchers say they’ve found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product that’s been used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s.

Researchers say they’ve found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product that’s been used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s. The researchers examined consumption records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 1967-2000 and combined it with previous research and their own analyses. The data showed an increase in the use of high-fructose corn sweeteners in the late 1970s and 1980s “coincidental with the epidemic of obesity,” said one researcher, Dr. George Bray, a longtime obesity scientist with Louisiana State University System’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center. “Body weights rose slowly for most of the 20th Century until the late 1980s,” Bray said. “At that time, many countries showed a sudden increase in the rate at which obesity has been galloping forward.” The study is being published in the April issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. But spokesmen with the food and beverage industry and a leading critic of fast food said weight gain would be a problem even if the sweetener didn’t exist. “It’s not about the high-fructose corn syrup being a part of foods, it’s about how many calories we’re eating against how many calories we’re burning,” said Alison Kretser, a registered dietitian and director of scientific and nutrition policy for the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Members include Coca-Cola Co., Kellogg Co. and Sara Lee Corp. Obesity among American adults rose from 23 percent in the early 1990s to 30 percent today, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. That means increased risks for heart disease, diabetes and cancers. The debate over high-fructose sweeteners centers on how the body processes sugar. Unlike glucose, found in table sugar, fructose doesn’t trigger responses in hormones that regulate energy use and appetite. Fructose, then, is more likely to be converted into fat, researchers said. Kretser said studies on how the body digests fructose corn sweetener are inconclusive because they were done on animals. Companies are adding more nutritious sweeteners to products, such as diet sodas, and returning to smaller containers, she said. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who worked on the study, said he believes a third to half of the increase in calorie intake since the 1970s comes from soft drinks and fruit drinks. (Source: Associated Press, March 2004)