Are Sugar Substitutes Making You Fat?

By:
Lynn Grieger

Reviewed By:
Susan Janoff, MS RD LD/N

Americans love sugar, and we consume it in a variety of ways, often in large amounts. In fact, the typical American consumes at least 20 teaspoons of added sugar per day. That's two and a half times the amount recommended for good health. And while we've heard about the evils of regular sugar, there's another common sweetener that's potentially even worse. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) lurks behind almost everything we eat and could be completely derailing your diet. HFCS has been linked to both obesity and type 2 diabetes, and it's in almost all of our carbonated beverages, which are the leading source of added sugar in our diet.

What is it?
HFCS is a combination of fructose and glucose, which food factories use to cut costs. It became a common ingredient, especially in sweetened beverages, starting in the 1970s when making HFCS became cheaper than using beet or cane sugar. The FDA considers HFCS to be generally safe, meaning that it has no known negative health effects.

The HFCS producers say their product is essentially the same as the sugar we put in our coffee, but instead of cane or beets, it's made from corn. On the relative sweetness scale, however, sugar rates 100 and HFCS 120 to 140 depending on how it's formulated. The higher rating is due to the addition of fructose, which by itself is sweeter than regular sugar (sucrose).

In addition to adding a sweet taste to foods, HFCS blends more easily than other sweeteners in beverages, helps prevent freezer burn in foods like ice cream and makes baked goods such as cookies and dinner rolls brown and soft. Between that and its low cost, HFCS looks like a food manufacturer's dream.

The sweet, the bad and the ugly
Although both sucrose and HFCS contain four calories per gram, some research suggests that HFCS promotes obesity. Much of the outcry comes from the fact that the beginning of the obesity epidemic coincides with the introduction of HFCS into the food supply. Since 1970, our consumption of HFCS has increased by 1,000 percent At the same time, our waistlines have also expanded--though,, thank goodness not by that much!

Some scientists believe that HFCS acts like a fat in our body more than a sugar because it might trigger mechanisms that promote body-fat storage. Fructose is more easily converted to fat and increases the amount of triglycerides in our bloodstream. Triglycerides are a type of fat that are easily stored as body fat, so the more triglycerides we have circling around, theoretically the more weight we'll gain.

Some researchers even believe that HFCS not only makes us fatter, but it can also potentially increase our risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

What we recommend
Take these steps to limit both sucrose and HFCS, and your waistline will thank you:

• Swap soda or other sweetened beverages for water or mineral water. Each 12-ounce can of soda contains at least 10 teaspoons of sugar, the amount we should consume in one entire day.
• Choose breakfast cereals with no more than 8 grams of sugar (that's two teaspoons' worth).
• Replace candy, cookies and other sweet snacks with a food that's naturally sweet: fruit.

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