A 2013 study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners found that fructose consumption has distinct effects on brain regions that regulate appetite. In short, people who consume high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) eat more.
“In a series of studies we have found that when compared to glucose, the simple sugar, fructose is a weaker suppressor of ain areas that help control appetite and the motivation to eat,” said study co-author Dr. Kathleen Page, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
A new study finds that fructose consumption has distinct effects on ain regions that regulate appetite, a possible mechanism for ‘ever-eating’ and the widespread rise in obesity and other related disorders.
Researchers do not think it is a coincidence that the consumption of fructose has risen dramatically since the creation of HFCS—right in line with the dramatic increase in obesity worldwide. Industrial-scale, cheap over-production of corn since the Nixon era in the early 1970s laid the foundation for the widespread use of HFCS that continues today as roughly one-quarter of U.S. agricultural land is devoted to corn crops.
--Sarah Hagerty
