Addictive Foods

25. June 2007 William Davis (3)
Kraft Foods, Inc. is manufacturer of Kool Aid, Oscar Mayer, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Velveeta, Honey Maid Grahams, and hundreds of other processed food products. Post cereals also falls under the umbrella of Kraft with products like Raisin Bran, Post Toasties, and Fruity Pebbles. Annual revenues in 2006 for Kraft: $34.4 billion. A big operation with enormous influence over our eating habits.

Nabisco is manufacturer of Oreos, Ritz Crackers, Chips Ahoy and many others. Like Kraft/Post, it is also a big player.

While Nabisco was owned for several years by tobacco giant RJ Reynolds, in 2000 it was acquired by Philip Morris, another big tobacco manufacturer.

More recently in Spring, 2007, Philip Morris (now called Altria--you'd change your name, too, if it was synonymous with dirt) spun off its Kraft subsidiary for a big profit. However, the management structures remain intertwined.

In other words, despite the shuffling of shares, the two industries, big tobacco and big food, are in many respects one and the same.

Is it any surprise that the same industry that made billions of dollars pushing addictive nicotine products responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is now intimately involved with addictive products produced and marketed by the processed food industry?

If you believe that food manufacturers are innocently and honestly conducting their businesses, simply think back to the testimony provided in front of Congress during the tobacco industry hearings. Broad deception, concealed truths, and outright lies were commonplace. There was no conscience involved. This was about money--and lots of it.

Why should the processed food industry, intimate with the tobacco industry, be any different?

If you want control over heart disease and your heart scan score, buy produce and buy local. Spend your time in the produce aisle, not the cereal or chip aisle. Unprocessed food, unadorned by bright labels, cartoon animals, American Heart Association endorsements, that's what we should seek.

Heart Scan Curiosities #7

25. June 2007 William Davis (1)



Here's a situation that crops up once in a while, occurring in perhaps 2% of heart scans.

The white within the circled area represents calcium, and thereby atherosclerotic plaque, situated immediately at the "mouth", or opening, of the the right coronary artery. What is somewhat unusual is that this plaque is not principally coronary, but aortic. That is, the plaque is mostly situated in the large vessel called the aorta. The three coronary arteries arise from the aorta.

In this instance, the aortic plaque involves the mouth of the right coronary artery. (In views not shown, the plaque also extends into the artery as well.) I call this a "double whammy" because the same plaque can post risk for heart attack and stroke.

Generally, aortic plaques pose risk for stroke. When aortic plaque fragments, little bits and pieces can travel upward to the brain and block an artery, thus a stroke.

In the coronaries, disrupted ("ruptured") plaques don't generally shower debris, but permit blood clot formation, resulting in heart attack.

This plaque, however, poses the theoretical risk of both heart attack and stroke because of its strategic location.

Should a plaque like this be handled any differently? I don't think so. But it does provide another reason to take atherosclerotic plaque in any artery seriously.

The nutrition counterculture

23. June 2007 William Davis (2)
When we look back over our American nutritional history over the last 50 years, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that much of the innovation in nutrition did not come from official agencies like the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, the FDA, the USDA, or the AMA.

Instead, it came from the popular culture. It came from bold, extravagant claims made by maverick figures like Ancel Keys, Nathan Pritikin, Dean Ornish, and Robert Atkins. Of course, some ideas have now fallen by the wayside, dismissed in a broad American "experiment" as ineffective, impractical, or kooky. But it permitted experimentation on an extraordinary scale with millions of people following a particular strategy at a time.

The advice of the official agencies tended to be reactionary. When nutritional deficiencies (remember those?) of the early 1900s were prevalent, they issued advice on food choices to help alleviate deficiencies. When deficiency transformed into excess after World War II, "smart" food choices from food groups and "sensible eating" became the theme.

Unfortunately, the advice was always adulterated by the enormous influence of various special interests, anxious to protect their national franchise. Powerful groups like the meat industry, wheat producers, and the dairy industry all made sure they had a big hand in crafting and influencing what was told to the American people.

The result: the advice offered by official groups has always represented the compromise of what some agency wished to convey to the people and the very powerful input of industry. What if the government decided to advise us what automobile to buy? Imagine the uproar in the auto industry when Washington tells us to buy Toyota for fuel economy and reliability. How long would that advice last?

That's why almost no knowledgeable adult follows the advice of the USDA, the National Academy of Sciences, or the Food Pyramid. I believe that we all intuitively recognize that the advice is watered-down, sometimes silly, sometimes downright unhealthy.

Nonetheless, the national experiment in diet that has taken place since 1950 has led to a collective wisdom of what is good and what is bad. The most productive conversations on nutrition therefore take place outside of the USDA and Washington. It occurs, instead, in places like bookstores, websites, and the media. Of course, there's lots of misinformation and profiteering in these sectors, as well. But like the enormous force unleashed by the collective wisdom of those contributing to the Wikipedia phemonenon, we've zig-zagged to something closer to the truth than ever uttered by an official agency.

Prescription vitamin D

23. June 2007 William Davis (32)
Niacin:

Over-the-counter: $2-5 per month
Prescription: $120 per month


Fish oil:

Over-the-counter: $3-6 per month
Prescription: $120 per month


Vitamin D:

Over-the-counter: $2 per month
Prescription: $70 per month



With vitamin D in particular, the prescription form is vastly inferior to the over-the-counter preparation. This is because the prescription form is ergocalciferol, or vitamin D2, not the effective human form, vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol.

When you're exposed to sun, what form of vitamin D is activated in the skin? It's all vitamin D3, no vitamin D2 whatsoever. Vitamin D3 is also far more effective than D2. People taking D3 (as long as it's oil-based) easily obtain healthy levels of vitamin D in the blood. People taking 50,000 units per day of D2 (the recommended quantity) remain miserably deficient, with minor increases in vitamin D blood levels. In short, D2 barely works at all. D3 works easily and effectively.

Moreover, D2 is the plant-based form. It is a form not found naturally in humans. D3 is the mammalian form, the same found in humans that exerts all its biologic benefits.

Then why is the prescription form of vitamin D2 (brand names Driscol and Calciferol) more expensive?

It's the same old pharmaceutical industry scam: Look for something patent protectable, regardless of whether it's superior to the non-patent protectable product, then sell it for exagerated profits. Though it is inferior and the science and clinical experience prove that it's inferior, you can still fool lots of people, including prescribing physicians. So what if you only make $50 or $100 million?

Don't fall for it. Prescription doesn't necessarily mean superior. In fact, the prescription form may be significantly inferior, as with vitamin D2. But the pharmaceutical industry carries such power and persuasion, who's going to know?

Nutrition activist Mike Adams

20. June 2007 William Davis (1)












I borrowed the above comic from the website of nutritionist, more properly nutrition activist and author, Mike Adams. His website, www.newstarget.com, was a pleasant surprise.

I was actually looking for some thoughts on pharmaceutical advertising and its pervasive and destructive effects and came across one of Adam's reports, Pharmaceutical television advertising is a grand hoax at http://www.newstarget.com/021526.html. The piece is a rant against the pharmaceutical industry's constant bombardment of the media, who have also been co-opted into their service, enticed by the enormous advertising revenues the drug industry brings.

But I was surprised to find an insightful, informative website on health issues, particularly healthy eating that rejects the manufactured food industry's intensive effort to persuade us to eat their products. While I don't agree with everything Adams has to say, his website provides some great food for thought. He also provides lots of downloadable information.

There's also some great laughs at his poke at the pharmaceutical industry with his Disease Mongering Engine at http://www.newstarget.com/disease-mongering-engine.asp, in which you get to create your own diseases. I got a real kick out of this.

CT scans and radiation exposure

19. June 2007 William Davis (8)


The NY Times ran an article called

With Rise in Radiation Exposure, Experts Urge Caution on Tests at

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/health/19cons.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1182254102-vQpytpx6W/Z9gvAaNPDZvA



“This is an absolutely sentinel event, a wake-up call,” said Dr. Fred A. Mettler Jr., principal investigator for the study, by the National Council on Radiation Protection. “Medical exposure now dwarfs that of all other sources.”


Where do CT heart scans fall?

Let's first take a look at exposure measured for different sorts of tests:



Typical effective radiation dose values

Computed tomography Milliseverts (mSv)

Head CT 1 – 2 mSv
Pelvis CT 3 – 4 mSv
Chest CT 5 – 7 mSv
Abdomen CT 5 – 7 mSv
Abdomen/pelvis CT 8 – 11 mSv
Coronary CT angiography 5 – 12 mSv

Non-CT Milliseverts (mSv)

Hand radiograph Less than 0.1 mSv
Chest radiograph Less than 0.1 mSv
Mammogram 0.3 – 0.6 mSv
Barium enema exam 3 – 6 mSv
Coronary angiogram 5 – 10 mSv
Sestamibi myocardial perfusion (per injection) 6 – 9 mSv
Thallium myocardial perfusion (per injection) 26 – 35 mSv

Source: Cynthia H. McCullough, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN


If you have a heart scan on an EBT device, then your exposure is 0.5-0.6 mSv, roughly the same as a mammogram or several standard chest x-rays.

A heart scan on a 16- or 64-slice multidetector device, your exposure is around 1.0-2.0 mSv, about the same as 2-3 mammograms, though dose can vary with this technology depending on how it is performed (gated to the EKG, device settings, etc.)

CT coronary angiography presents a different story. This is where radiation really escalates and puts the radiation exposure issue in the spotlight. As Dr. Cynthia McCullough's chart shows above, the radiation exposure with CT coronary angiograms is 5-12 mSv, the equivalent of 100 chest x-rays or 20 mammograms. Now that's a problem.

The exposure is about the same for a pelvic or abdominal CT. The problem is that some centers are using CT coronary angiograms as screening procedures and even advocating their use annually. This is where the alarm needs to be sounded. These tests, as wonderful as the information and image quality can be, are not screening tests. Just like a pelvic CT, they are diagnostic tests done for legimate medical questions. They are not screening tests to be applied broadly and used year after year.

Always be mindful of your radiation exposure, as the NY Times article rightly advises. However, don't be so frightened that you are kept from obtaining truly useful information from, for instance, a CT heart scan (not angiography) at a modest radiation cost.



Detail on radiation exposure with CT coronary angiograms on multidetector devices can be found at Hausleiter J, Meyer T, Hadamitzyky M et al. Radiation Dose Estimates From Cardiac Multislice Computed Tomography in Daily Practice: Impact of Different Scanning Protocols on Effective Dose Estimates. Circulation 2006;113:1305-1310, one of several studies on this issue.

Mediterranean diet vs. American Heart Association Diet

18. June 2007 William Davis (4)
In 1994, the Lyon Heart Study demonstrated a 50-70% reduction in coronary events in participants who followed a diet rich in vegetables, olive oil, fish, nuts, red wine, and enjoyed meals as a family activity. Various other studies have documented similar phenomena with less metabolic syndrome, better lipid patterns, less obesity with the Mediterranean lifestyle.

There are two fundamental differences between the Mediterranean diet and the diet advocated by the American Heart Association (AHA) for people with heart disease: the Mediterranean diet uses olive oil more liberally, such that fat calories can reach 40% of total; and, unlike the AHA diet, processed foods are not a part of the Mediterranean diet. Greeks, for instance, are far less likely to eat Count Chocula cereal for breakfast, or snack on Healthy Choice Premium Caramel Swirl Sandwich (ice cream sandwiches) or Malt-O-Meal Honey Nut Scooters. All three of these foods on listed on the AHA Heart-Check Mark heart-healthy program.

In other words, remove all the processed foods, and the AHA diet pretty closely resembles the Mediterranean diet. There are differences but they tend to be relatively small. If the only major difference is the presence of processed foods, wouldn't you therefore expect the AHA to embrace the Mediterranean diet?

Here's what their official stand on the Mediterranean diet states:

Does a Mediterranean-style diet follow American Heart Association dietary recommendations?

Mediterranean-style diets are often close to our dietary recommendations, but they don’t follow them exactly. In general, the diets of Mediterranean peoples contain a relatively high percentage of calories from fat. This is thought to contribute to the increasing obesity in these countries, which is becoming a concern.



The AHA is actually lukewarm towards the diet that was the first to show a dramatic decrease in heart attack and death. Why?

The answer is obvious, once cast in this light. To wholeheartedly endorse the Mediterranean diet might be seen as an indirect rejection of American processed foods. You know, the foods that have caused an extraordinary and unprecedented epidemic of obesity in the U.S., the foods that are manufactured by ConAgra, General Mills, Kelloggs--all also major financial contributors to the AHA, according to the AHA Annual Report.

I tell my patients: If you want heart disease, follow the American Heart Association diet. In my view, it is a diet founded on politics and money, not on health. How else could Cocoa Puffs be regarded as heart healthy?

Track Your Plaque in 50,000 BC

16. June 2007 William Davis (3)
Imagine we could send you back in a time machine to 50,000 BC.

However, our agreement: no modern tools or equipment. Just your brain, hands, and legs. And your landing spot will be tropical or semi-tropical, the same climate that humans spent much of their evolutionary time in.

Not only might you rub elbows with contemporaries like homo erectus and neanderthalensis, you'd also have to fend for your life and survival.

To eat, you will have to chase and kill wild game, all with your bare hands or crude tools crafted from sticks and stones. You will have to learn what wild berries, roots, and plants are edible and distingusih them from those that make you retch, make your bowels run, or kill you. You won't be able to cultivate grain, at least for a good long time, since you don't have a community that makes such an undertaking easier.

Instead, you are constantly on the run, from the moment you awake until you finally settle back as the sun sets, hopefully with a full stomach, but often empty and growling, anticipating the hunt and forage of tomorrow.

You are outdoors all day, except for the period when you hide in your cave or self-made shelter. You wear what little clothing you can make yourself from your kills, a skin or two. Your skin becomes a dark brown, a 5 foot 10 inch male will weigh 140 lbs, a 5 foot 5 inch woman 95 lbs. There are obvious downsides: your teeth will rot, you will be prone to infections, and predators view you as fair game.

But the result will be that many chronic diseases of modern life will no longer be worries for you. Heart disease? Highly unlikely. Do you need vitamin D? No, because you are outdoors virtually all day with most of your body surface area exposed to sun. Omega-3 fatty acids? You get those from the wild game you eat, since they have higher omega-3 content feeding in the wild, not eating corn like modern livestock. Since your body fat is minimal, just enough for survival, you don't need niacin.

In other words, many of the strategies of the Track Your Plaque program are modern necessities, responses to the "deficiencies" of modern life. Of course, I don't really have a time machine. I also doubt that you wish to hunt wild game every day, forage for plants and roots, run nearly-naked in the sun. You probably also have become accustomed to brushing your teeth and not viewing every animal as a potential threat to your life.

Nonetheless, I find this an interesting exercise for understanding the role of all the tools we use in the Track Your Plaque program for plaque control.

When pessimism wins

15. June 2007 William Davis (3)
When I first met Hank, I immediately sensed it: anger, hostility, fear. His heart scan score of 685 just made it worse.


He didn't want to be there talking to me. His wife was giving him a hard time. Work was a constant source of irritation. The receptionist at the front desk screwed up his paperwork. Our office charges were too much.


In short, Hank was a pessimist. A bad one.


All the nutrition information out there is bunk. Only he knew how he should eat right. It's stupid to take a lot of fish oil. "You want me to grow gills?"


Among the parameters we use in the Track Your Plaque program is blood pressure during exercise, which provides a surrogate measure of blood pressure during emotional stress, anxiety, etc. "No, I don't need that. I already exercise." No amount of justification could change his mind. "A guy at work had a stress test. They said everything was fine, then Bang! He drops dead. What good is that?"


Hank did go along with a few pieces of advice.


A repeat heart scan 12 months after the first: 870, a 27% per year rate of increase. That's about what would happen if Hank had done nothing, had taken no action to try and stop or reduce his heart scan score.


I don't know if Hank will ever succeed in dropping his score. In fact, I suspect that he will fail, meaning that plaque will grow and he will eventually, perhaps in a year, two or three, require several stents, heart bypass, or have a heart attack. In other words, Hank's pessimism is a self-fulfilling phenomenon: If he believes he will fail, he will. If he believes the world is a rotten place, it is.


Is it possible to "cure" someone like Hank of his deeply-rooted pessimistic attitudes? I don't know of any easy solutions for someone with attitudes as deeply-ingrained as Hank's. (See my prior post, "Cure for pessimism?" at http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html.)

I believe it does help to make someone aware of their attitudes and that it does indeed exert ill health-effects--if they will believe it. But this is a very tough nut to crack.

Bad news on CoQ10?

13. June 2007 William Davis (8)
A review of the effects of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) on the muscle aches and weakness (myopathy) of statin drug therapy was just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

(Marcoff L, Thompson PD. The role of coenzyme Q10 in statin-associated myopathy. J Amer Coll Cardiol 2007;49(23):2231-2237.)

This is not a study, but a review of the existing scientific and clinical data available on this topic. The study authors conclude with a lukewarm statement:

". . .there is insufficient evidence to prove the etiologic [causal] role of CoQ10 deficiency in statin-associated myopathy and that large, well-designed clinical trials are required to address this issue. The routine use of CoQ10 cannot be recommended in statin-treated patients. Nevertheless, there are no known risks to this supplement and there is some anecdotal and preliminary trial evidence of its effectiveness. Consequently, CoQ10 can be tested in patients requiring statin treatment, who develop statin myalgia, and who cannot besatisfactorily treated with other agents. Some patients may respond, if only via placebo effect."

Should the media get hold of this report, be prepared for the usual "Nutritional supplement no help for drug toxicity" headlines, or "Yet another nutritional supplement shows no benefit" with parallels drawn to vitamin C or E.

There are several issue that need to be factored into the discussion:

1) This is not a study, just a review. Thus, any biases of the authors are more likely to exert themselves.

2) The understanding of CoQ10 absorption among different preparations may be an issue. I just received a mailing from Life Extension that made extravagant claims about the superior absorption of ubiquinol, to be distinguished from ubiquinone, the more common form. They claim that eight-fold increased absorption and blood levels of CoQ10 are achievable with ubiquinol. Unfortunately, virtually all the supportive data are unpublished, proprietary observations, i.e., generated by companies who make or sell it. This is as reliable as drug manufacturers who publish glowing reports on their own drugs--perhaps it's true, but it requires unbiased corroboration.

3) Despite the lack of a large, well-funded clinical trial (all are small), the issue continues to live and breathe because of the powerful anecdotal experience.

In our experience, CoQ10 does work. It doesn't work all of the time, perhaps just 80-90% of the time. It does generally require higher doses (100 mg per day, occasionally more). It very clearly must be an oil-based gelcap (just like vitamin D) to work; capsules containing powder do not work.

It's difficult to doubt when someone starts a statin drug, develops the muscle aches and weakness, begins CoQ10 and obtains distinct relief, stops CoQ10 and aches and weakness return, then only to go away again with resumption of CoQ10 . I've seen this countless times.

We do need better information on CoQ10. There's no doubt about it. For people who obtain benefit from statin therapy, I think CoQ10 remains a useful solution. A better solution would be to get rid of the offending drug. But that's not always possible--e.g., LDL cholesterol 190 mg/dl despite the best diet and "adjunctive" food effort. Then CoQ10 can be very useful.
Goodbye, fructose

Goodbye, fructose

12. July 2009 William Davis (35)
A carefully-conducted study by a collaborative research group at University of California-Berkeley has finally closed the lid on the fuss over fructose vs. glucose and its purported adverse effects.

The study is published in its entirety here.

Compared to glucose, fructose induced:

1) Four-fold greater intra-abdominal fat accumulation--3% increased intra-abdominal fat with glucose; 14.4% with fructose. (Intraabdominal fat is the variety that blocks insulin responses and causes diabetes and inflammation.)

2) 13.9% increase in LDL cholesterol but double the increase for Apoprotein B (an index of the number of LDL particles, similar to NMR LDL particle number).

3) 44.9% increase in small LDL, compared to 13.3% with glucose.

4) While glucose (curiously) reduced the net postprandial (after-eating) triglyceride response (area under the curve, AUC), fructose increased postprandial triglycerides 99.2%.


The authors propose that fructose specifically increases liver VLDL production, the lipoprotein particle that yields abnormal after-eating particles, increased LDL, and provides building blocks to manufacture small LDL particles. The authors also persuasively propose that fructose metabolism, unlike glucose, is not inhibited (via feedback loop) by energy intake, i.e., it's as if you are always starving.

Add to this the data that show that fructose increases uric acid (that causes gout and may act as a coronary risk factor), induces leptin resistance, causes metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), and increases appetite, and it is clear that fructose is yet another common food additive that, along with wheat, is likely a big part of the reason Americans are fat and diabetic.

Fructose is concentrated, of course, in high-fructose corn syrup, comprising anywhere from 42-90% of total weight. Fructose also composes 50% of sucrose (table sugar). Fructose also figures prominently in many fruits; among the worst culprits are raisins (30% fructose) and honey (41% fructose).

Also, beware of low-fat or non-fat salad dressings (rich with high-fructose corn syrup), ketchup, beer, fruit drinks, fruit juices, all of which are rich sources of this exceptionally fattening, metabolism-bypassing, LDL cholesterol/small LDL/ApoB increasing compound. Ironically, this means that many low-fat foods meant to reduce cholesterol actually increase it when they contain fructose in any form.

When you hear or say "fructose," run the other way, regardless of what the Corn Refiners Association says.
Tags :

Comments (35) -

  • Anna

    7/12/2009 4:32:48 PM |

    Don't forget agave syrup/nectar.  That is the latest "low glycemic" sweetener temping sugar addicts, particularly to those interested in health.  Agave sweeteners are VERY high in refined fructose, with some brands much more fructose than HFCS (I've seen figures as high as 92% fructose).

    Even more worrying, agave sugar products  are labeled as safe for diabetics, who are particularly prone to damage from frequent consumption of concentrated fructose.

    The people I see using or recommending agave sweetner products seem to think that because they can't detect an immediate post-prandial BG rise, that agave syrup is somehow better (therefore healthier) than sugar and safe for liberal and/or frequent use.  Not so.  All refined/concentrated sugars need to be limited in both quantity and in frequency, including concentrated fructose.

    I see "moderation" used a lot in reference to sugars and agave products whenever criticism of sugars is made.  But what is "moderation"?  Do we even have a reference point anymore in our sugar-drenched culture?  "Moderation" in the 21st century is still at least a hundred pounds per capita more sugars than most humans consumed just a few hundred years ago, and much more than our paleolithic ancestors consumed. Even "moderation" needs to be considered in moderation.

  • Nameless

    7/12/2009 7:21:03 PM |

    Wow, that's really interesting.

    In the past I've wondered if something real simple (like removal of soda/sugary drinks) from society would have a major impact on both heart and general health.  Apparently it would.

    It's also weird how cardiologists (in general) overlook sugar intake almost completely. When I last saw my cardiologist, I was sort of baffled that they were offering the patients waiting for infusion therapy snacks while they wait. The nurse commented how  the patients go  first for the peanut butter/jelly sandwiches and they run out fast. And I'm there thinking... are they crazy, giving  sugary food to heart patients?  Then I remembered most cardiologists tend to be fat intake oriented only.

    Question for Dr. Davis -- what amount of fructose, daily would you consider safe? Is any amount  safe? As certain fruits do provide health benefits even if they do contain fructose. Berries are still acceptable? What gycated hemoglobin level do you aim for with your patients and have you noticed any differences in plaque progression based solely on this value?

  • Rick

    7/13/2009 3:33:37 AM |

    Hi Dr Davis,
    Could you tell us more about beer? Do you mean that beer has fructose added to it? Or that it contains a lot of fructose naturally? In general, how high up is beer on your list of things that we shouldn't eat? I ask because I'm having some success cutting down on sweet things and on wheat, and beer is one of my chief culinary pleasures. I don't mean that I drink a lot or that I drink everyday, just that I thoroughly enjoy the 3 or 4 beers a week I do have. (I generally drink brews made with 100% barley malt.)

  • pmpctek

    7/13/2009 3:40:40 AM |

    So low glycemic fruits (which are high in fructose) like apples, apricots, berries, cherries, grapefruit, plums, and prunes can be hazardous to our health...

    I'm starting to run out of things I can eat.

  • Cynthia1770

    7/13/2009 1:27:47 PM |

    Hi,
    Thank you for the link to the JCI
    study. I can hardly wait to see how the CRA will militantly respond. As a former research technician I am driven crazy when the CRA claims that sucrose and HFCS are essesntially similar. Take the variant HFCS-55. To the casual observer the 55% fructose: 45% glucose composition looks 5% different than the 50:50 ratio found in sucrose. That is, until you do the math.
    55%:45% = 55/45 = 1.22.
    This means in every can of Coke
    (bottled in the USA) there is, compared to glucose, 22% extra fructose. The CRA can't deny the math; they designed the ratio. To your health.

  • homertobias

    7/13/2009 3:17:12 PM |

    Did anyone notice that one of the authors of the article is RM Krauss? I love chasing his articles on pubmed.  His saturated fat articles from a few years back are particularily interesting.  I think of him as "small dense krauss" in the age,rage and ldl series on Peter's blog.

  • Curious

    7/13/2009 7:02:44 PM |

    Dr. Davis - there's so much great information here, but when we ask questions to try to understand the information, you don't answer them!

  • Dr. William Davis

    7/14/2009 12:43:22 AM |

    Thank you, Curious.

    But most of my time is spent in my more-than-full-time cardiology practice, consulting to the nutritional supplement industry, research, and the practically full-time website, Track Your Plaque, in which I engage in discussions with your wonderfully savvy Members. So I have to triage my time accordingly.

  • Dr. William Davis

    7/14/2009 12:44:41 AM |

    Also, I read the comments and I try to cover as many of the points as possible in future posts or in the content we post on Track Your Plaque.

    Remember: As I post prominently on the blog: The Heart Scan Blog accompanies Track Your Plaque; it is not meant to be a standalone source of information.

  • Anonymous

    7/14/2009 2:46:29 AM |

    Dr, D.  Those of use who TYP ( "track your posts") on this Blog may not be as "bought in" as the members of your track your Plaque members.

    If fructose is added to beer, it will be converted to alcohol so none left in the final product.  If wheat is used in the beer grist, the starches that are extracted are converted (mostly) to alcohol so no residual "toxins" to cause swelling.

    It isn't high fructose corn syrup consumption or prepared meals that makes Americans one of the most overweight nations in the world, its eating more calories that you need; it comes down to pure physics

  • Jammer

    7/14/2009 7:41:45 PM |

    I'd like to see a post about the lie of Calories. Fat is calculated at 10 kcal/gram because if burns (bomb calorimeter) better than sugar (calculated at 4kcal/g, the same as fiber).

    But of course sugar is much more available to our bodies as energy than fat or fiber.

    This makes the Calorie a big lie and emphasizes even more the low-fat diet (because fat would obviously be easier to cut by calorie than carbs).

    When people try to talk about the "physics of losing weight", they need to address the underlying assumptions that make the whole system a lie.

  • Anonymous

    7/15/2009 3:11:32 AM |

    Jammer, Please, it is a fundamental law: you can not create or destroy energy.  Mechanistically the body may deal with fats, sugars and proteins differently but unless you live in an alternate dimension, calories absorbed by the gut are either expended as energy or stored in the body in one form or another.  Belief in some magical effect of being able to "eat all the xyz without putting on weight" is a matter of faith and faith is neither fact nor science.

  • Apolloswabbie

    7/16/2009 7:28:23 PM |

    Anonymous, on the contrary, you are expressing faith in but one interpretation of the Laws of Thermodynamics (LoT).  When tested, results often show that one can eat more calories on a restricted carb diet and be less hungry and lose more weight.  The reasons are many and I refer you to Good Calories Bad Calories should you wish to learn more.  The body is not a closed system, and your interpretation of the LoT imply that it is.  What do I mean?  â€œCalories in = energy expended + fat accumulated/depleted” is correct, but only if one realizes that some calories drive hormonal responses which have an effect on the equation.  Eat more protein, feel less hunger, be more active, thus expend more energy.  Eat more carbohydrate (measured by glycemic load in particular), feel more hunger and behave like hungry people do - rest more, thus expending less calories.

    Do teenagers grow because they eat too much or because their bodies are responding to the complex interaction of hormones?

    Do pregnant ladies gain weight because they eat too much or because their bodies are responding to the complex interaction of hormones?

    Do post-menopausal ladies gain weight more easily because they suddenly begin to eat too much, or because their bodies are responding to the complex interaction of hormones?

    Do tall thin people (ectomorphs) just magically match their consumption and expenditure (thus remaining slender despite what appears to be high food intake)?  Or are they genetically programmed to a different hormonal response than endomorphs?  

    If you met two people, one tall and thin and the other shorter, wider, with a large pelvis and heavy bones – don’t you already know that one will struggle more with their weight than the other?  You do, and you know it long before you know which one is the least disciplined in the non-food arenas in their lives.  

    Are you aware of the research that shows, repeatedly, that the obese consistently eat less than many or most of those who are not obese?

    Do those who are heavier than we think they should be eat too much, or are they responding to the hormonal mileu they have created by eating foods which we are not designed to eat?  I think the later.  Obesity is not the result of a character flaw, it is a result of widespread consumption of foods (primarily cereal gains, sugar and agricultural products which have exceptionally high carb content) we are not genetically adapted to.  These foods drive a hormonal response the results in energy accumulation as fat.

  • Anonymous

    7/19/2009 12:01:19 AM |

    Aplloswabbie,notwithstanding the impact on what drives people to consume or expend energy at different rates, all excellent info., the equation is still balanced in the end.

  • Apolloswabbie

    7/19/2009 4:37:21 PM |

    Anon, agreed, but the significance of our agreement on that fact is low, as it provides little utility in assisting ourselves or others with their health.  For me, the realization that "low fat" diets are unnatural and drive metabolic derangement gave me a chance to eat good food to satiety, but avoid the high body fat that plaques my family.  Best regards.

  • JLL

    7/20/2009 1:57:42 PM |

    How much fructose does beer have then? From what I could find, the fructose content of barley malt is significantly lower than other sugars.

  • stern

    7/29/2009 9:50:44 PM |

    how about mal;tose from tapioca syrup?

  • Anonymous

    7/31/2009 8:51:33 PM |

    Now if you could get Congress to drop the high tariffs on sugar so it becomes less expensive than HFCS, we all could live longer.

  • trinkwasser

    8/3/2009 12:32:58 PM |

    Not much longer, we predominantly have sugar from local beet rather than HFCS in the UK, yet our stats aren't much better. IMO there's little difference in the relative toxicity between sugar and HFCS within the context of a high wheat diet

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  • Anonymous

    2/8/2010 8:08:00 PM |

    So fruit, in moderate portions, is bad for me?
    *snort*
    I understand targeting HFCS just as you would large amounts of sucrose.  It's the AMOUNT of these substances that can be a problem.  The other nutrients I get from a piece fruit can far outweigh any possible negative of small amount of fructose in the piece of fruit.  Decisions are all about risk vs. benefit. I imagine there are no risk-free food choices.

  • Anonymous

    8/8/2010 8:41:07 PM |

    No risk-free food choices, Anon?  Whole fruits and vege have little risks!

    Very good post that busts everything that http://betterworldcookies.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-i-use-agave-nectar-examination-of.html says!

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  • buy jeans

    11/2/2010 7:37:08 PM |

    Fructose is concentrated, of course, in high-fructose corn syrup, comprising anywhere from 42-90% of total weight. Fructose also composes 50% of sucrose (table sugar). Fructose also figures prominently in many fruits; among the worst culprits are raisins (30% fructose) and honey (41% fructose).

  • Anonymous

    1/24/2011 5:52:58 PM |

    A point that Robert Luskin makes in his video "Sugar, the Bitter Truth" is that biochemically fructose does not produce Leptin in the body, the "stop eating" hormone.

    A great ingredient for corporate food products - the more fructose, the more you eat/drink before feeling "full". Given that the calorie surplus that makes the US one of the fattest countries in the world is only 20 calories per day, high fructose corn syrup could account for that all by itself.

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