Well, there's this post of yours.
I agree that price-driven considerations flood us with HFCS by the way, and that major agribusiness is more concerned with cost and shelf-life than the salubrious (see Calvin and Hobbes) quality of our food.
A couple of other points which I have never seen addressed satisfactorally...
1) Sucrose is 50-50 fructose-glocose; HFCS is 55% fructose. Is that 5% significant biochemically (i.e. does it flood a chemical pathway, or switch on other pathways for some reason)?
2) Does the body break up the HFCS into the monomers at a different rate than it does sucrose?
No hand waving, please. Has anyone bothered to look? And is the biochemical response different in the thin, the slightly overweight, the obese?
I've seen Sears call three fatty acids "hormones" including arachidonic acid. The only way you could determine whether or not this idea is based on good research would be to study the available research on these three fatty acids that he calls hormones; and find out what evidence there is for the physiological effects he claims. He's never managed to offer the research supporting his conclusions.
There I think Sears is engaging in "marketing" either to sensationalize, sell books or make his material more accessible to the public. I've lent out my copy of The Zone but IIRC he shows that arachidonic acid is a precursor to a number of inflammatory messengers, and so he takes the liberty of saying it behaves like a hormone.
I thought he was doing well enough on the writing/lecturing/consulting circuit that he didn't need to grub for grants, btw.
Also, have you read the book Mastering Leptin by Richards and Richards? The library had a recall on it before I could absorb all its contents, but it seemed to say the timing of different types of meals influence the release of leptin, and hence, one's hunger (in addition to the insulin, glucagon, etc. etc.)
Cheers!
Yes, carbonyls are highly reactive and could play a role in diabetes. Ho may have found something important here. Then again, maybe not. We'll have to wait to find out. And, as you know, most research ends up being meaningless. In the meantime, let's deal with what we know to be factual.
I agree that price-driven considerations flood us with HFCS by the way, and that major agribusiness is more concerned with cost and shelf-life than the salubrious (see Calvin and Hobbes) quality of our food.
I don't agree with this statement at all. You've offered absolutely no evidence that the food industry is more concerned with cost and shelf life than with the "salubrious." This is fact free nonsense. If you could prove there was anything unwholesome about HFCS, as a replacement for sucrose, you'd prove it here. Conclusion without evidence.....and you were a scientist?
A couple of other points which I have never seen addressed satisfactorally...
1) Sucrose is 50-50 fructose-glocose; HFCS is 55% fructose. Is that 5% significant biochemically (i.e. does it flood a chemical pathway, or switch on other pathways for some reason)?
Significant biochemically? Please. Are you aware that there is another commercialized form of HFCS that's only 42% fructose? Is that one better for you than the 55% fructose product? Fructose is cleared by another pathway, as opposed to glucose, but they both reach the Krebs cycle at the same level (3x2 carbon fragments).
2) Does the body break up the HFCS into the monomers at a different rate than it does sucrose?
Why would this even matter? The Glycemic Index for sucrose and HFCS fall in the 55-60 range. The satiation profiles of both, for the purposes of this discussion, are the same.
No hand waving, please. Has anyone bothered to look? And is the biochemical response different in the thin, the slightly overweight, the obese?
There I think Sears is engaging in "marketing" either to sensationalize, sell books or make his material more accessible to the public. I've lent out my copy of The Zone but IIRC he shows that arachidonic acid is a precursor to a number of inflammatory messengers, and so he takes the liberty of saying it behaves like a hormone.
That's a polite way of saying Sears is lying. Creating fear by misrepresenting the results of "research", or the research itself, must help him sell his books.
Also, have you read the book Mastering Leptin by Richards and Richards? The library had a recall on it before I could absorb all its contents, but it seemed to say the timing of different types of meals influence the release of leptin, and hence, one's hunger (in addition to the insulin, glucagon, etc. etc.)