Dec 21, 2014 09:05 AM EST
High-Fructose Corn Syrup Might Make You Hungrier, New Study Shows

According to a new study, it would seem that high fructose foods like corn syrup (called Glucose-Fructose in Canada) could actually make people hungrier upon consumption, leading consumers to overeat the highly sugary artificial compound, which has been often associated to obesity.

As the obesity epidemic rages on in many countries, many health investigations have focused their research on how obesity works and can be ultimately managed, doing a lot of work on the different unhealthy compounds that men and women across the world, trying to see what these different types of food trigger in the body - including high fructose.

High fructose corn syrup undergo enzymatic processing to convert its natural glucose into fructose, producing sweetness - due to the fact that this process is actually cheaper than the creation of table sugar, processed foods like cookies or sodas often use this syrup as sweetener.

According to WebMD.com, the discovery was made by the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, in a paper called "Fructose and glucose: Brain reward circuits respond differently to two kinds of sugar" and first presented at this year's annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona.

Through the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scientists from the departments of Medicine and Psychology of the University of Southern California examined motivation and brain responses when 24 volunteers of both sexes saw images of sweet foods after they'd drank something containing either fructose or glucose (the body's natural source of energy).

Basically, it was found that those who had consumed fructose was hungrier and had a bigger altogether desire to eat.

According to Science Daily, it has been found that the direct consumption of glucose creates a feeling of being satisfied; however, the consumption of fructose provokes further feeding.

In other words, as Medical Daily reports, the brain responds differently to the two types of sugar, a fact that makes a great difference when on a diet to fight obesity.

 PREVIOUS POST
NEXT POST