Dr. Mark Hyman explains why high fructose corn syrup drives obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease. He argues you should eliminate it from your diet entirely.
Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to my weekly house call, your chance to ask me your questions. And this week's question is, what about high fructose corn syrup? Is it really that bad for you? And the answer is yes. And here's why. Number one, we're eating huge doses of sugar, and high fructose corn syrup is the most abundant sugar. It's gone from zero to about 70 pounds per person per year. Total we eat about 150 pounds of sugar per person per year. That's a half a pound a day for every man, woman and child in America. I know I'm not having that much, so probably some of you are having a lot more. And when you eat sugar in those doses, it's a toxin. And the fructose, which is free fructose in high fructose corn syrup, is actually more than the glucose. Now most sugar is glucose and fructose, and they're stuck together in a bond. Well, high fructose corn syrup, they're chemically altered and separated. And that fructose goes right in your liver, main line, right in your liver, and it turns on a factory of fat production called lipogenesis, and you get a fatty liver. In fact, that's the most common disease in America today, fatty liver, affecting 90 million Americans, and it leads to diabetes, which is pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes. And this is driving most of the epidemic of heart disease, cancers, dementia, and of course diabetes. So this is the real driver. If we took one thing out of our food supply that would make the biggest difference, it would be high fructose corn syrup, because it's just in such a volume there. In fact, the average 20 ounce soda has 15 teaspoons of sugar, all high fructose corn syrup. The average kid has two of those a day. And that has an enormous effect at a toxic level, which is the level that we're eating today. Another reason to cut out high fructose corn syrup is that there are chemical contaminants in it that are used in the manufacturing, some of which we know about and some of which we don't. What we know, for example, is that high fructose corn syrup is extracted using chloralkali, which contains mercury. and there are trace amounts of mercury found in high fructose corn syrup containing beverages. Now, it may not be a problem if we're having it occasionally, but the average person in the country is having 20 plus teaspoons a day of high fructose corn syrup and that's a lot of high fructose corn syrup. And over time, the heavy metals can accumulate in your body. So we really want to get rid of it, period. It should not be in our food supply. Another reason is the high fructose corn syrup, when you analyze it on a spectrograph, when you look at the chemical components, it actually lights up all these weird chemicals that we don't even know what they are. So there's all kinds of stuff and contaminants in there we haven't even determined yet. And better safe than sorry. Also, the main reason you should give up high fructose corn syrup is this. It's a big red flag for very poor quality food. If you see it on a label, I guarantee you it's junk. It's processed food, it's processed salad dressing, processed ketchup, it's processed bread. I mean, you name it, it's everywhere. So if you see it on the label, put it back on the shelf. You really should not be consuming this food. So if you want to stay healthy, if you want to get rid of chronic disease, if you want to reduce our obesity epidemic, the single most important thing you can do eliminate high fructose corn syrup from your diet and from your children's diet. Just banish it from your house. So here's a challenge. I want you to go to your kitchen right now. I want you to go in the cupboard. I want you to look at every single label. I want you to go in the fridge. I want you to look at every single label. And I want you to count how many products that you have in your house have high fructose corn syrup. And then what I want you to do is get a big garbage bag and throw them out and find replacements that don't have that in it. And if you want to have some sugar, fine, have a little sugar, but add it to your food. Don't put it, don't eat foods with added sugar. And you know what? The food labeling industry, the lobbies from the food industry that govern our labeling, they actually make it confusing on purpose. They lobby so that we won't know how much sugar they actually add. If you look at sugar on the label, it doesn't tell you how much is added, but most of the foods we have have added sugar. So here's the rule you need to remember. Cut out high fructose corn syrup from your life forever. You'll be healthier, our plant will be healthier, and we'll have a healthier generation of children. So now I want to hear from you. Please leave your comment in the comment section. Share this newsletter with your friends and family. Share it on Facebook and Twitter. And submit your question so that next week I may make a house call to you. —.
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