What Is Meaning Of High Fructose?

Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in fruits and honey. It's also part of the composition of a popular yet controversial sweetener known as high-fructose corn syrup. You might have heard the term "high fructose" bandied about by public health officials, news media and food manufacturers. As a sweetener, the substance is at the center of controversy. Several studies, such as one published in the August 2009 "Journal of Clinical Investigation," links excessive fructose to abdominal obesity, increased circulating triglycerides and cholesterol, and insulin resistance. The American Medical Association says high-fructose corn syrup is so similar to table sugar that more study is needed on the health effects of the sweetener. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010, however, says Americans consume too much sugar altogether and urges you to limit the added sugars in your diet, no matter the source.

Fructose

Once known as levulose, fructose is one of many sugars that exist in nature and is also created in the food manufacturing process. Fructose is a monosaccharide, or simple sugar, meaning it's also the most basic form of stored energy that your body uses. Its chemical structure is carbon-based, and its molecular makeup is somewhat similar to glucose. The two go together to form table sugar, or sucrose.

Manufacturing Sweetness

High-fructose corn syrup starts out as corn starch. Food manufacturers who want to make it into a sweetener use enzymes or acids, such as alpha amylase, to break down the starch into glucose sub-units. Then they use additional enzymes, such as glucose isomerase, to convert a portion of the glucose into fructose. It's called high-fructose to recognize the proportion of fructose over glucose. Several formulations of high-fructose corn syrup are used in the products you eat and drink. Most formulations call for about 55 percent fructose, although some formulas call for as low as 42 percent and as high as 90 percent fructose.

Health Effects

Because fructose travels through a distinct transporter directly to your liver, and some remnants to your kidneys, it's implicated in the development of many health problems, including insulin resistance, diabetes, fatty liver disease, high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease. In addition, fructose might not signal to hormones in your body that are responsible for hunger and satiety. These include leptin and ghrelin. Consequently, heavy consumption of high-fructose corn syrup might be tied to overeating. One study, among many, published in the April 2004 "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" indicates that as consumption of high-fructose corn syrup grew in the decades between 1970 and 1990, so did the rates of obesity.

By Any Other Name

If the Corn Refiners Association gets its away, you might not hear the term "high fructose" for much longer. It's not that the sweetener's going anywhere. It's that the association thinks people are too confused by all of the media messages you hear about high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS. To clarify possible misconceptions, the association petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow the name to be changed to simply corn sugar. The association, with some backing from the American Medical Association, wants you to think of high fructose corn syrup as being no different from other sugars in the way it behaves inside your body. The association launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to support changes in public perception of HFCS, but the Associated Press reports that sales of HFCS have begun to decline. By spring 2011, the FDA had yet to rule on the name-change request.