Fruck You, Fructose!

Not the best spokesmodel
for the health properties
of Coca Cola

Things most certainly do not go better with Coca Cola -- not if you want to keep your kidneys, limbs, and eyesight.

These days you don't even have to add rum to your Coke to get fatty liver disease -- the precursor to diabetes and leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, cancer and dementia.

About one third of all Americans have fatty livers, which makes it one of the most common diseases in the country. Yet hardly anyone even talks about it. More likely you will hear the less graphic term metabolic syndrome, which sounds less disgusting than having a fatty liver.

The killer ingredient in Coca Cola, of course, is high fructose corn syrup, a cheap, highly processed sweetener that could be destroying more American lives than cars, guns and cigarettes combined.

While saturated fat and cholesterol have been getting all the headlines, HCFS has been hiding in plain sight.

Since this unnatural sweetener infiltrated our nation's food supply in 1975, Americans have gotten significantly fatter and sicker. What's especially shocking is that non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases was virtually unknown in the United Stated before 1980, according to the Harvard Health Letter.

Coincidence? I think not.

The good news is that high fructose corn syrup has gotten enough bad press in the 21st Century that companies are starting to prominently feature the phrase "No high fructose corn syrup" on their labels.

But we have a long way to go. For every processed food that does not contain this poison, many more still do. And here's why that's so troubling:

As bad as sugar is -- and on a scale of 1-10, sugar is at least an 8 -- high fructose corn syrup is far worse.

The chemical processing of this sweetener creates unbound fructose that can only be metabolized in one part of the body.

Yep, you guessed it.

The liver.

And when only the liver can metabolize a substance, it is -- by definition -- a poison.

When the liver gets more fructose than it needs for energy, it turns it into a fat factory. The process of converting glucose to liver fat is called lipogenesis and it makes your liver look like this:

Fatty liver

Though it won't win any beauty contests, here's what your liver is supposed to look like:

Healthy liver

Make a life-changing investment in yourself by spending 90 minutes of your life watching this video from UCSF pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig to learn the fascinating history and biochemistry behind this epidemic.

Though I have yet to hear someone go on a diet because their liver is too fat, I can think of no better motivation after seeing these photos and watching Dr. Lustig's video.

So before you ply your family with fruit juice or soda -- or many commercial brands of spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, granola bars, yogurt, bread or breakfast cereal -- check the label. And if high fructose corn syrup is on there, make like the Gingerbread Man and run, run as fast as you can.


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