Down with HFCS!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Finally a decent study.

The results are interest but, as usual, hardly the smoking gun most reports are making it out to be.

Here is a detailed report.

Some things to note.

* A total of 40 rats (10 in each of 4 groups) were used in the first study. I'm no scientist, but that doesn't seem like a huge sample size. Even smaller for the 2nd experiment. Only 24 males. It doesn't state how many females.
* The 4 groups were fed 1) HFCS and chow on a 24h feeding schedule, 2) HFCS and chow on a 12h feeding schedule, 3) sucrose and chow on a 12h feeding schedule, 4) just chow on a 12h schedule. In that experiment, ONLY the HFCS, 12h schedule groups showed a statistical difference in weight from the control group. The group on the 24h schedule did not (and actually gained less weight than the sucrose group).
* The longer term experiment showed some more convincing evidence, at least among male rats. Both HFCS groups were significantly more obese than the control group. But (and this part makes the least sense to me) because they didn't see statistical weight gain in males in the first experiment from sucrose, they decided not to include a sucrose group in the 2nd. Umm, why? Especially when one of the 2 HFCS also showed no significant increase. Seems like a major oversight to me.
* Among females in the long term 2nd experiment, the statistically significant gain was again seen in one HFCS group, but not the other, reversed this time with the 24h schedule showing the gain. And again, the other HFCS group fared BETTER than the sucrose group.


With 4/6 HFCS groups showing significant deviation from control, it's definitely something worth exploring. If the results can be consistently replicate, they're on to something. But this is not a lot of data to draw any real conclusion from.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Hmm, one more interesting detail.

In the first experiment, where the 12h HFCS group gained more weight. The rats in that group were actually observed to be consuming less of their HFCS solution than the rats int he sucrose group were consuming of their solution. But their total caloric intake was the same. Meaning, since the solutions were the same calories/volume, the HFCS rats were making up the difference by eating more of the chow. So it's entirely possible that the extra chow was the mechanism for the weight gain (and possible that the HFCS induced them to eat more chow).

[Ghoulish Delight]

You know, it pisses me off to read the article with actual results, and then see one of the guy's whose name is on the article say, "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board." WTF, man? Stand by your results, don't gloss over the details.

And then scientists complain that people don't understand how to interpret scientific data.

[Mousey Girl]

I tend not to believe any study that uses rats. I have had pet rats since I was 4. Rats are prone to tumors, so any study that says it produced tumors in rats is a joke.

Fat rats are common. I have a "wheel rat" that is twice the size of the rest of my girls, but she exercises twice as much. My thinnest rat is always eating, yet she seems to be stuck at the smaller size.

Hooded and siamese rats are more likely to get respitory problems, solid, albino and dumbo rats are more likely to get tumors and have weight issues.

Depending on the study, you can make almost any result you want.

[Ghoulish Delight]

All of these things are known, and the REASON they use rats. If you want to study tumors, you need something that is relatively likely to get a tumor. What they're looking for isn't "Did rats get fat" or "Did rats get tumors". What their looking for is, "Out of X number of rats did MORE rats get fat, or tumors or whatever, when we did Y than when we didn't do Y.

So if, left alone, 10% of rats get tumors, but when exposed to 30 minutes of Glenn Beck/day, consistently 25% of rats get tumors, that's unlikely to be just because "rats get tumors".

There's nothing wrong with basing conclusions on studies with rats. There's something wrong with ignoring parts of the results that don't agree with your conclusion.

[Mousey Girl]

I guess I am just biased because I have pet rats.
I do see your point about the conclusion.