June 2025

Metabolic Health

• Metabolism & Your Health
• Understanding Metabolic Syndrome
• Body Fat – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
• What To Know About High Fructose Corn Syrup

Do you read labels while shopping for food?

Most people I know don’t read labels. If you think about it, the labels print are so small that they are not meant to be read.

More often than not, habits drive the choices of foods you put in your shopping cart on your weekly supermarket trip. If you take the time to read the labels on the food you often buy, you will discover that many of them list high fructose corn syrup as one of the ingredients. Often, it’s high on the list of ingredients, which means it’s present in significant amounts in the product you are holding.

What To Know About High Fructose Corn Syrup

What is high fructose corn syrup?

High fructose corn syrup is a liquid sweetener made from corn. Fructose, a fruit sugar, is a Monosaccharide (mono=one, sacchride=sugar) or simple sugar, like glucose and galactose.

Sugar, like your typical table sugar, is a disaccharide (dia=two sacchrides=sugar) made of glucose and fructose bound together.

High fructose corn syrup is more effective at improving the flavor of foods, is cheaper than sugar, and has a longer shelf life.

When high fructose corn syrup was first introduced in 1970, it accounted for 1% of the sweeteners in the U.S.; today, it is roughly 40% of all caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages.

It makes sense that high fructose corn syrup is found in sweet foods like baked goods, snacks, soda, ice cream, and fruit drinks, but high fructose corn syrup hides in many savory foods too, such as ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, salad dressing, bread and bagels, and some canned foods.

How does the food industry hijack your brain?

When I want to understand how a specific diet affects our health, I always like to start by looking back at how our bodies have evolved over millions of years. For our ancestors, carbohydrates were a coveted source of energy. Digging roots was a hard job, but the complex carbohydrates from roots kept them satiated longer than the aerial part of the plant. You can relate if you think about how you feel after a meal made with mashed potatoes compared to a salad.

The human brain was so happy with the consistent energy flow following a meal made from roots that it began to reward us with a surge of dopamine every time we eat carbs. What started as a survival mechanism for our ancestors became a sugar craving for us. Eating sweet-tasting foods, especially monosaccharides that are so easy to absorb, reinforces the dopamine reward system in the brain, making you crave more of it.

Big food companies have figured out this tendency and are using it against you. A food industry that uses high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient in so many of its products is a food industry that promotes metabolic syndrome

High corn fructose syrup and metabolic syndrome

When you eat table sugar, enzymes in your gut need to break down the bond between glucose and fructose before you can absorb them into your blood circulation. Fructose, on the other hand, is a single molecule that the gut lining can easily absorb. It doesn’t circulate in your blood as glucose does. Instead, it is shuttled directly to the liver.

While glucose metabolism depends on insulin, fructose is primarily processed in the liver through a metabolic pathway that is independent of insulin.

In healthy individuals consuming reasonable amounts of fructose, the liver converts it to glucose, and any excess is stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles. However, in individuals who consume excessive fructose.

Fructose triggers a cascade of metabolic symptoms, including:

Obesity: Fructose doesn’t stimulate insulin or leptin release. Leptin, the satiety hormone, regulates body weight by letting you know that you ate enough. In the absence of leptin, you are at risk of increased hunger and weight gain.

High triglycerides: Fructose drives obesity by overstimulating a survival response called the “survival switch,” which prompts the body to store energy as fat instead of using it immediately for fuel. Excess consumption of fructose can lead to increased triglyceride formation and fat storage.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: Excess triglycerides in the liver must be exported from the liver to fat tissue for storage. Choline is necessary for the triglyceride export process. When either choline is deficient or fat tissue becomes “full,” these triglycerides accumulate in the liver cells, leading to a nonalcoholic fatty liver.

Insulin resistance: Increased triglycerides lead to inflammation and are driving factors in the development of leptin resistance, which can contribute to the progression of insulin resistance.

High blood fructose can bind to proteins and white blood cells, triggering an inflammatory response and oxidative damage, which can lead to insulin resistance.

The drama of high fructose corn syrup happens in the liver, the alchemist of your body that drives metabolic health. Once you develop insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes, and nonalcoholic fatty liver, you feel tired and depressed; your health is on a downward spiral.

Nutrient deficiencies: High-fructose corn syrup is high in calories but low in essential nutrients. The more foods with high fructose corn syrup you add to your plate, the less space is left for nutrient-dense foods, leading to nutrient deficiencies.

Hiding behind a mask

The word about the health risks of high fructose corn syrup is spreading. The food industry will not remove a cheap ingredient that increases cravings and sales of their products but will try to fool you, the consumer.

You might not find high fructose corn syrup on the label, but it now has other names. Here are some of the alternative names under which high fructose corn syrup might be hiding in your foods:

1. Fructose

2. Fructose Syrup

3. Corn Syrup

4. Corn Syrup Solids

5. Corn Sweetener

6. Maize Syrup

7. Glucose/Fructose Syrup

8. Isolated Fructose

9. Fruit Fructose

10. Crystalline Fructose

I’m not sure about you, but I expected the FDA to protect my health. Since that’s not gonna happen, here are some tips for navigating the grocery store aisles:

• Prioritize whole foods: veggies, fruits, meats, and unsweetened dairy.
• Real foods are typically found near the walls, as they require refrigeration.
• Read labels. If your grandmother didn’t recognize an ingredient as food, it isn’t food.

High-fructose corn syrup is not a food; instead, it is a highly processed chemical substance. It is high in calories, low in nutrients, and highly inflammatory.