Path to obesity sign-posted by four letters – HFCS
Re: “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right”, Have Your Say, June 15.
Eric Bahrt once again castigates me for my “grains are fattening” stance. The main message in my letter was that grains are unhealthy with their lectin plant chemicals, leptin plant hormones and their phytates that block mineral absorption. Also I mentioned that green tea, with it’s high fluoride and oxalic acid content, has no magic and is harmful to health. This is shown by Japan’s almost epidemic levels of cancer, (mainly of the oesophagus), stroke, dementia, diabetes, osteoporosis, high blood pressure and rheumatoid arthritis, even as green tea is drunk daily by the litre. That didn’t bother Eric.
One needs to realise that it’s the carbohydrates that fatten. Digested carbs first top up muscle and liver glycogen, stored sugar. The rest is rapidly converted to body fat in the cells’ mitochondria via the Krebs cycle. Digested fat only slowly converts to usable energy molecules in the liver (“Human Physiology” Chapter 5: Cell and Energy Metabolisms). Fructose converts directly to body fat in the liver – high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) massively accelerates this pathway. The pathways to obesity paved by monosodium glutamate (MSG) and Aspartame have also been identified! Eric Bahrt needs to do a little more study.
Then there exist various homeostasis mechanisms that cause our metabolic rate (MR) to speed or slow depending on what, when and how much is eaten. Eric should note that if he has a light bone structure, he will be affected differently from those with medium or heavy bone structures. For example, a light-boned “ectomorph” can quaff down half a gallon of heavily sugared, high HFCS ice-cream, munch through several loaves of bread and even take in 10,000 calories and they’ll weigh exactly the same next day. Why? Ectomorphs have a rapid rise in MR after such a meal, and it all gets “burnt up”! However, a heavy-boned endomorph gains fat on a slice of apple pie or a few slices of whole-grain bread, thanks to their inherently very low MR rise after a meal (“Human Physiology” Ch 7: Homeostasis Mechanisms). This is what makes it impossible for Eric or other light bone-structured vege eaters to get fat.
Thomas Turk
Phuket
