ADA conference receives results of HFCS study

Food & Drink Weekly, Oct 11, 2004

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) cannot be singled out as a unique contributor to obesity, according to a report delivered at this week's Public Health and Community Nutrition Practice Group meeting at the American Dietetic Association Food and Nutrition Conference. The research findings were presented by Maureen Storey, director of the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy (CFNP), an independent research and education center affiliated with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). The report was the result of a scientific workshop on HFCS which was co-sponsored by CFNP and the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the University of Maryland. It included leading experts on nutritive sweeteners, carbohydrate chemistry and human metabolism.

"There is simply no credible scientific evidence that HFCS is the cause of rising overweight and obesity rates," said Storey earlier this year when the study was first released. "Overweight and obesity is a serious worldwide health problem and better research is needed to effectively prevent unhealthy weight gain. Unfortunately, recent published commentaries and studies on HFCS have only confused the issue and misinformed the public with regard to a key public health problem."

Storey said suggestions that HFCS is a unique contributor to obesity "are doing a disservice, especially from a public policy perspective." She said there are already too few resources available to address the obesity issue, "and we cannot afford to divert public policy attention toward agenda-driven theories that are unsound scientifically."