Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ScottBurson 3963 days ago
Actually not. The fructose is indeed the problem, but HFCS contains only slightly more fructose than sucrose (table sugar) does: sucrose is 50% fructose, HFCS is about 55% fructose.

In sucrose, the fructose and glucose are chemically bonded together in pairs, while in HFCS, they're just mixed together. But this also doesn't help much; although the body must split the sucrose molecule into its parts in order to metabolize it, this doesn't take very long.
1 comments
adamnemecek 3963 days ago
Please see section 4.5 of this paper http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/HFCS_Rats_10....
link
ScottBurson 3963 days ago
Okay, well, other experts like Robert Lustig think they're not very different.

The thing you have to watch out for is that lots of people want to find the "good" form of sugar. That's why we see products in the stores with ingredients listed like brown sugar, "evaporated cane juice", etc.

I concede that there might be a bigger difference between sucrose and HFCS metabolism than I was aware, and you did start off your comment with "Sugar would be bad but...". Nonetheless I think it would be easy for someone reading your comment to take away the idea that HFCS is the big problem and sucrose is okay, because people want to do that.

So I think the point that sucrose is not really okay either deserves more emphasis than you gave it.

link
adamnemecek 3963 days ago
> Okay, well, other experts like Robert Lustig think they're not very different.

Eh? http://foodidentitytheft.com/obesity-expert-dr-robert-lustig...

I can't find the actual papers but it seems like his opinion is not exactly conclusive and his wiki page suggests something along those lines as well.

> The thing you have to watch out for is that lots of people want to find the "good" form of sugar.

> Nonetheless I think it would be easy for someone reading your comment to take away the idea that HFCS is the big problem and sucrose is okay, because people want to do that.

I literally said that they both bad. They can takeaway whatever they want but I can't really be blamed for that.

link