Articles

The Death of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Submitted by Drew Kaplan on April 19, 2010

The back-to-back, double whammy announcements that PepsiCo (PEP) is ditching high fructose corn syrup in Gatorade along with the results of a scathing new study from researchers at Princeton make it official — allies of the controversial sweetener have lost the war. For years, the Corn Refiners Association, a trade group consisting of companies like Cargill and ADM (ADM), has been hammering away at the bad press gushing out about high fructose corn syrup. In ads, in the press and online, they argue that the sweetener is a perfectly natural product and that it is no worse for you than regular old sugar.

To which consumers have responded with a collective “Yeah, right.” Con Agra (CAG) is taking HFCS out of its Hunt’s ketchup, Kraft (KFT) is banishing it from Wheat Thins and you will no longer find it in Snapple drinks. It’s all in response to what food companies say is overwhelming consumer demand. “We know moms don’t like it, and they don’t want to feed it to their kids,” supermarket expert Phil Lempert told Ad Age. Last month, outraged San Francisco parents forced high fructose corn syrup out of chocolate milk in the school system. More products are sure to follow.

Rightly or wrongly, HFCS is deeply entrenched as the most popular symbol of the growing consumer distrust of a food system that churns out nutritionally empty, overprocessed foods with a long list of strange, unpronounceable ingredients.

And now the Princeton study gives HFCS foes the scientific bombshell they’ve been looking for, since actual evidence that eating lots of HFCS is going makes you fatter and unhealthier than simply eating lots of sugar is scant. The university reports that rats that ate HFCS gained significantly more weight than those that ate table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same. The fact that the results of this study may be based on inconclusive results and thus not really offer convincing evidence, as NYU nutrition expert and no fan of HFCS Marion Nestle, points out, will likely get lost in the shuffle.

If only the Corn Refiners Association had changed the name of their beleaguered product, things might have worked out differently. Despite its name, high fructose corn syrup is only marginally higher in fructose, which has been clearly linked to obesity and metabolic syndrome, than regular sugar. (The fructose however is not chemically bonded to glucose as it is in sugar and thus more freely available to the body, so that could actually make a difference, though it’s never been proven).

But when you’re trying to tell people that your product doesn’t have a lot of fructose, but it’s called high fructose corn syrup, it’s a bit like naming your new butter alternative Extra Trans Fat Margarine. No one’s going to buy it.

Published by: Health Freedom Alliance Alert:  April 21, 2010 (Internet)

                     Preserve & Protect Your health Freedom

Website: http://healthfreedoms.org

Hypnosis a Powerful Tool in Complementary Cancer Care

Complementary therapies, while not given the attention that more traditional cancer therapies may receive, are perhaps equally important while undergoing treatment for certain types of cancer. Patients diagnosed with difficult to treat malignancies will often use these types of therapies in conjunction with traditional surgical, chemotherapeutic, or radiology techniques to form a more comprehensive and effective treatment regimen. Among the most important and effective alternative therapies utilized by those diagnosed with cancer is hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapy has been used for many years in clinical settings. Hypnotherapy’s role in cancer management however, is relatively new and indications are that its utilization has not been fully maximized yet. Effective cancer treatment often depends on the patient’s ability to not only defeat the cancer through treatments but also to maintain their health and mental spirit throughout the painful side effects of cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation.

Often, the symptoms and effects of the cancer itself on the body are negligible compared to the pain and other side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. This is where acupuncture has been said to be most effective. Cancers such as peritoneal mesothelioma, which are often unable to be removed by surgical means, are often treated with some combination of chemotherapy and radiation. While these potent therapies can be effective in eliminating some of the tumor mass and growth, they also profoundly affect the health of the surrounding tissue. Symptoms of these effects including fever, nausea, and general pain have been dramatically reduced through the utilization of hypnosis. Patients, who are able to withstand these symptoms and recover quickly, will often be able to be more aggressively treated, increasing the efficacy of the treatment regimen as a whole. Some specific hypnotherapy techniques utilized in pain management include altering the neurophysical configuration of pain, control of anticipatory anxiety, and targeted imagery.

Hypnotherapy techniques may not be appropriate for all patient’s pain and individual symptoms but it’s certainly worth exploring as it can do very little harm in experimenting with integrative therapies. The goal with alternative therapies, as with traditional mesothelioma treatments, is always to increase the effectiveness of treatment as a whole. If hypnotherapy can assist in any way in helping patients recover or manage symptoms of chemotherapy or radiation, then it will have contributed to the treatment regimens overall efficacy and should certainly be utilized.

References

Erickson MH: Hypnosis in painful terminal illness, in Haley J (ed): Advanced Techniques of Hypnosis and Therapy: Selected Papers of Milton Erickson, MD. New York, Crune & Stratton, 1967.

Sunnen, Gerard M.D. , Hypnotic Approaches in the Cancer Patient Ozonics International, LLC