Sugar is sugar

Last week the Corn Refiners Association suggested changing the term "high-fructose corn syrup" t to “corn sugar,”because we all know the first is bad for us. About 55 percent of Americans list the corn sweetener among their food-safety worries, right behind mad cow disease and mercury in seafood. But is it the only villain?

Only about half of the added sugar in the American diet comes from corn sources, The New York Times reports.

All added sugars, nutrition scientists say, including those from sugar cane and beets, are cause for concern. Today, sugar calories now account for 16 percent of the calories Americans consume, a 50 percent increase from the 1970s.

There are some chemical differences between high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose, or table sugar, and scientists debate whether they act differently in the human body. Best bet for all of us to assess all of the sugar, whatever the type, in our diets.

Dr. George A. Bray, professor of medicine at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., who wrote an article in 2004 that became fodder for the anti-corn syrup crowd, says it should not have been singled out.  “Sugar is sugar,” he says. While high-fructose corn syrup isn’t any more detrimental than regular sugar, he says, the benefit of focusing on the ingredient is that it has drawn attention to too much sugar in the American diet.