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[Guest guest]

This article is from Organic Gardening Magazine. Its off topic (sort of) and

long (sort of) but worth reading. HFCS is killing Americans

The Common Food Ingredient That's Making You Stupid

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Lab studies show high-fructose corn syrup can actually sabotage your smarts

in just 6 weeks.

Foods that appear to be nutritious could actually be destroying your

brainpower. The culprit? A common ingredient slipped into many " healthy " foods,

including baby food, applesauce, and oatmeal, a breakfast favorite. Researchers

at UCLA found that ingesting foods and drinks containing the ingredient

high-fructose corn syrup

http://www.rodale.com/high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-sugar for just six weeks

caused troubling changes in brain function. " Our findings illustrate that what

you eat affects how you think, " says Gomez-Pinilla, PhD, a professor of

neurosurgery and integrative biology and physiology at UCLA. " Eating a

high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and

remember information. "

While high-fructose corn syrup is rampant in soda and candy products, it also

hides out in some seemingly innocuous items like bread, juices, ketchup, and

instant oatmeal. (Previous studies have found high-fructose corn syrup is

sometimes contaminated with mercury.) Most often associated with obesity and

diabetes, this latest study, appearing in the /Journal of Physiology/, shows

this industrial food ingredient can harm the brain, too.

This could be leading to an all-out American brain drain, given that the

average citizen downs 40 pounds of the ingredient every year.

*The Experiment*

To find out how high-fructose corn syrup affects brain function, researchers

studied two groups of rats: One group downed high-fructose corn syrup in water

for six weeks; another dined on high-fructose corn syrup but also received doses

of brain-protecting omega-3 fatty acids.

Before their high-fructose corn syrup diet began, the rats were all trained to

navigate a maze. After eating the sweetener for six weeks, researchers put the

rats to the maze test again. The animals that didn't receive the omega-3 brain

protection were slower and experienced problems with brain signaling, which

disrupts critical skills like memory and thinking. Researchers also witnessed

signs of insulin resistance in the group without omega-3s; this could hamper

normal energy processing, which could impact thoughts, emotions, memory, and

learning, according to Gomez-Pinilla. " Our study shows that a high-fructose diet

harms the brain as well as the body, " he adds. " This is something new. "

*3 Rules for Avoiding a High-Fructose Corn Syrup-Derived Brain Drain*

*#1: Eat organic.* If you don't feel like reading fine-print ingredient labels

every time you reach for a product in the supermarket, just look for the organic

seal. High-fructose corn syrup and many other harmful food additives are banned.

And whatever you do, don't ditch real fruit, which contains a natural form of

fructose, not the dangerous processed type. " We're not talking about naturally

occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants, "

explains Gomez-Pinilla. " We're concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is

added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative. "

*#2: Find safer sweet treats.* Gomez-Pinilla, a native of Chile and an exercise

enthusiast who practices what he preaches, advises people to keep fructose

intake to a minimum and swap sugary desserts for fresh berries and Greek yogurt,

which he keeps within arm's reach in a small refrigerator in his office. An

occasional bar of dark chocolate that hasn't been processed with a lot of extra

sweetener is fine, too, he adds.

*#3: Eat for brain protection.* Be sure to eat foods containing naturally

robust levels of omega-3 fatty acids, especially if you'll be indulging in food

containing high-fructose corn syrup. Omega-3–rich foods include eggs from

pastured hens, wild-caught Alaskan salmon, flaxseed, and walnuts. DHA, the type

of omega-3 that comes from omega-3–rich animal products, helps protect against

damage to brain synapses. These synapses are critical to tasks like memory and

learning—the very functions that high-fructose corn syrup damages.