Let's limit our intake of corn-syrup ads

A nationwide marketing campaign says high-fructose corn syrup has been unjustly blamed as a cause of obesity. True? Yes and no.

News flash: High-fructose corn syrup isn't to blame for the obesity epidemic.

"High-fructose corn syrup was acquitted today amidst a flood of public apologies by consumers who had singled the corn sweetener out as a unique cause of obesity," newspaper ads declared in what was intended to look like a news story showing a man dressed like an ear of corn being proved innocent.

The full-page ads, part of a $1-million marketing campaign launched Tuesday by a food-industry-backed advocacy group, ran in prominent newspapers nationwide, including this one. TV versions are running on all the cable news channels.

"Consumers have been duped," said J. Justin Wilson, senior research analyst at the industry-funded Center for Consumer Freedom. "High-fructose corn syrup is a product that has been bizarrely maligned by what amounts to an urban myth."

True?

The answer: yes and no.

"Nutritionally, there's no difference between high-fructose corn syrup and sugar," said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food-safety watchdog group.

"In terms of obesity, however, high-fructose corn syrup is still guilty," he said.

The reason for that is high-fructose corn syrup's ubiquity as a sweetener, especially in soft drinks. Americans' unquenchable thirst for soda is a primary reason for the obesity epidemic, experts say, and that's why consumers shouldn't be so quick to exonerate high-fructose corn syrup.

"Because of its widespread nature and relatively low cost to produce, it's a significant contributor to human obesity," said Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition.

That's not what the Center for Consumer Freedom would have you think.

"We recognize that both high-fructose corn syrup and sugar have calories, and eating calories will cause you to put on weight," Wilson said. "But the obesity epidemic is more complicated than singling out individual ingredients."

He said consumers are smart enough to understand that the issue isn't whether they should favor one sweetener over another. It's whether they can enjoy sweets in moderation.

"You've got to give people some credit," Wilson said. "They should be free to choose."

The American Medical Assn. issued a report last year concluding that there didn't seem to be any difference between high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners. But it said more research was needed.

Nutrition experts say there may indeed be little if any difference between high-fructose corn syrup and sugar -- both seem to be equally bad for you if consumed in excessive amounts.

Many nutritionists say you should limit sweets (excluding milk and fruit) to 40 grams a day. That's about as much as you'd get from a single can of Coke.

But the experts say your body doesn't always know what's good for it.

Dr. Elizabeth Parks, an associate professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said research shows that liquid calories aren't processed the same way as "solid" calories.

The body, she said, has a tougher time understanding that it's just received a full tank of fuel when calories arrive in beverage form. "As a result, you don't have as good a sense of how much you have consumed."