Ontario's agriculture industry weighs sweet study

Thursday, January 3, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

A recent American study linking fructose consumption with brain changes that can lead to overeating raises more questions than it answers, say Ontario agriculture industry representatives.

Steve Peters, executive director of the Alliance of Ontario Food Processors, says there are no conclusive findings on the role played by fructose in the rising obesity epidemic. And this current study, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, involved just 20 people.

The study employed brain scans to determine people’s responses to consuming either pure fructose or glucose. It found that fructose triggers regions of the brain that increase appetite while glucose increases levels of hormones that make people feel full.

Researchers wanted to study the neurophysiological factors that might underline associations between fructose consumption and weight gain, it says in the study on the Journal’s website.  

Peters says while he’s not a scientist “there’s concern expressed over how many people were actually studied.” People shouldn’t “jump to conclusions based on one study of 20 individuals.”

Another question he has is what type of drink was consumed. “I don’t know if this was someone drinking a soft drink having the product in it along with other things or whether this was a raw product.”

The alliance is a non-profit organization of food and beverage processing companies and industry organizations in Ontario.

Erin Fletcher, spokesperson for Grain Farmers of Ontario, says they’re still gathering information and waiting to hear from a University of Guelph food scientist on the validity of the study before commenting.

Peters says in Ontario there are three plants making high fructose corn syrup and “a lot of farmers are shipping to those three plants.”

Ingredion Canada Incorporated, formerly known as Casco Inc., manufactures high fructose corn syrup, solids, dextrose, maltodextrin and starches. It’s a division of Ingredion Inc. based in Westchester, Illinois, a global ingredient provider to the food, beverage, brewing, pharmaceutical and other industries.

Rob Kee, vice president and managing director of Ingredion Canada Incorporated, says the two regular sweeteners with calories consumed in Canada and around the world are sucrose, which is table sugar from either sugar cane or sugar beets, or high fructose corn syrup, which comes from corn.

Kee says some people incorrectly presume high fructose corn syrup is pure fructose because it has the word ‘fructose’ in it.
 
Both sweetener types “are 50 per cent glucose and 50 per cent fructose,” he explains. “If a study is done on taking pure fructose and having people consume it and then taking pure glucose and having other people consume it, that’s interesting. But it doesn’t give any insight at all into how high fructose corn syrup interacts with the body.”

Moreover, there is nothing in the study “that allows us to compare high fructose corn syrup to cane or beet sugar. As far as giving any kind of an indication as to how or what people eat affects their appetite, there’s really nothing in the study that gives any insight about that because nobody eats pure fructose.”

In an editorial released with the study, Jonathan Purnell and Damien Fair, doctors with the Department of Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, say the “hypothalamic brain signal generated in response to fructose ingestion was statistically different from the response following glucose ingestion. The directionality of the difference is not (as) important as is the fact that a difference was found and is accompanied by an increased sensation of fullness and satiety after glucose but not fructose consumption.”

Purnell and Fair say fructose found in sucrose and high fructose corn syrup has been the subject of intense debate. Products containing fructose are preferred by consumers and cooks over those containing only glucose because fructose is intrinsically sweeter and has the ability to improve baked goods’ appearance and texture. As a result, sucrose and high fructose corn syrup are added to soda, energy, sport and juice drinks, processed meats, sauces, snacks and many other foods consumed by people of all ages.

“It is not surprising that the consumption of sugar and high fructose corn syrup in the United States has increased substantially in the last few decades, Purnell and Fair say, adding that obesity, especially among children and adolescents, has also increased.

Blaming a single nutrient for contributing to the obesity epidemic is difficult, they say. But there are reasons this might be possible for fructose because other studies have linked increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages with weight gain in adults. BF