Study Finds Link Between Corn Syrup and Diabetes
A new study released Tuesday by researchers at USC and the University of Oxford indicates that large amounts of high fructose corn syrup is linked to the rising global epidemic of Type 2 diabetes.
The study focused on examining the use of high fructose corn syrup in 42 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa and its association with diabetes.
The study found that countries that use high fructose corn syrup in their food supply had a 20 percent higher tendency of diabetes than countries that did not use high fructose corn syrup.
"HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) appears to pose a serious public health problem on a global scale," said Michael I. Goran, the principal study author and co-director of the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.
Professor Stanley Ulijaszek, director of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford stated that most global populations have an appetite for sweet foods.
"Regrettably our metabolism has not evolved sufficiently to be able to process the fructose from high fructose corn syrup in the quantities that some people are consuming it," Ulijaszek said.
The researchers found that the United States has the highest per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup at a rate of 25 kilograms per year. The second highest is Hungary, followed by Canada, Slovakia, and Bulgaria.
Countries with a higher capita of high fructose corn syrup had an average dominance of Type 2 diabetes of 8 percent compared to the 6.7 percent in countries that don't use high fructose corn syrup. Researchers believe that the new study indicates a serious global public health problem.
People suffering from Type 2 diabetes tend to have high blood glucose due to insulin resistance and typically have a 10 year shorter life span than the general population.
Complications from Type 2 diabetes include blindness, gum disease, dementia, cardiovascular disease and even an increase in lower limb amputations. Ulijaszek said Type 2 diabetes is one of the most common causes of death in the world today.
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