High Fructose Corn Syrup: Avoiding It Can Save Your Life

Eric Rieger  0:00  
All right, we are here at gut check project. Welcome KBMD health fans and family. We are on location in Conroe, Texas at Southern star brewery with my co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. I'm Eric Rieger Dr. Brown. It's Episode 42. And this does not look like our set.

Ken Brown  0:19  
This is not our set. And this is very special. First of all, shout out to Southern Star Brewery, or letting us do this. Now we're here for a reason, a very special reason we are. This is going to be a really cool episode where we're going to talk about something really important and how it impacts the health and the future of everyone living in the United States. We're gonna talk about high fructose corn syrup. And there's a reason for that, because the next episode, oh, man, 

Eric Rieger  0:42  
It's huge if we won't give it all away. But if you're tuning in for this episode, you're missing out. If you're not watching the one that comes right after this, we've got a special guest. And it's the whole reason that we're here in Conroe, Texas, Southern Star brewery just north of Houston, you can hear the sound in the background, the music's going crazy, but it's all worth it.

Ken Brown  1:01  
And the really cool thing is Southern Star Brewery, I just spoke with their brew masters, they do not use high fructose corn syrup. So we are in a perfect place to do that 

Eric Rieger  1:09  
We are in a perfect place to do this. So Dr. Brown this particular episode, we're going to really get down to the meat and potatoes we normally don't do, quote unquote short episodes, even though we try to do that. But today, we have a topic that we really kind of discussed that we needed to cover before we had our special guest on. And this is an election cycle also. So of course, the next guest the next episode is definitely I would say political when you say it is definitely political, but also like minded, very like minded and really much very interested in your health. So let's get straight to it. high fructose corn syrup. That's what's on the table today. Why don't you kind of steer us where we're gonna go.

Ken Brown  1:52  
So we were planning on doing high fructose corn syrup, regardless. And then yesterday, a patient of mine sent me an article said, Hey, check this out. And an article just got published out of the University of Colorado, okay, where they looked at the lows. Yeah. And they, they were able to associate that symptoms, ADHD, aggressive behavior, and bipolar disease can actually be linked to high fructose corn syrup, not just Oh, if you drink this, this happens, scientists figured out that the reason why is that when you take in high fructose corn syrup, you are actually starving your brain. Your brain thinks it's starving, while your body's getting fat. And so because of that, your brain goes into what is called a foraging mode. It actually turns on remember when we talked about orexin and things like that when when you go into a forest? Yeah, guess what your brain is going Yo, we got to get some food here. Even though you're drinking mountain dews. And you're opening up, you know hohos and stuff and you are morbidly obese on the outside, your brain is starving for energy. And they're attributing that this could actually be the the reason why you have hyperactivity, creating ADHD, aggressive behavior, and bipolar disease. When you have foraging mentality, your brain tells you to go out and do something. So you end up with impulsivity, aggressiveness, and reactiveness. And I just want, there's no way a patient just sent me this article. It came out yesterday. And we were already planning on talking about this beautiful timing. So this is just one article. I mean, that just showed up yesterday. So that is, if you are interested in high fructose corn syrup, and you happen to be somebody who suffers from anxiety, ADHD, or impulsivity, listen,

Eric Rieger  3:41  
well, another thing to take away here is where do you find high fructose corn syrup? Oh, I don't know, almost everything that's processed with sodas, breads, treats. It is a sweetener, per se. And a lot of people have even told me I remember when I was younger, that it was just like sugar. Well, it's sweet. And that's pretty much where it ends. We've already talked about the dangers of just even sugar exposure. Believe it or not, it's worse. It's truly worse. We're gonna get into it today, but Coke's, Pepsi's sodas, if they're sweetened. And I mentioned breads and treats. But in sometimes you'll find high fructose corn syrup and things that you don't even perceive as sweet. Which is the problem 

Ken Brown  4:23  
100% we're gonna get into that. Now, one of the things we do here on the gut check project is we want to bridge the gap. A lot of people always say, Oh, yeah, I've heard the same on high fructose corn syrup. And in this climate right now, it feels like everything could be politicized. Yes. And I feel like even bringing this up could turn into some sort of political argument. That's not what we do here. We're just gonna talk science. Let's, let's talk objective data. So I'm gonna throw this at you. You're better at the historical aspects of things. Let's just briefly go over how did we end up with high fructose corn syrup in everything.

Eric Rieger  4:57  
I think if I recall the story, somebody What correctly, we needed number one to have sugar or sweeteners available, we wanted to see if we we mass produced products that the shelf life could be extended. And in doing so we also had farmers that had grown a lot of corn. And so you have the I think it's the Corn Growers Association or corn refiners Association, CRA that essentially functions as a lobbying agency for corn growers. And what they found is they could compete in the sweeteners market by mass producing high fructose corn syrup. And this process was, I don't know if it was discovered accidentally or on purpose. But ultimately, it's a two step process, which one phase of it is somewhat, I guess, naturally occurring if you force it, but it's not a natural thing to have.

Ken Brown  5:52  
It sounds like you're describing a Labradoodle?

Eric Rieger  5:54  
sorta a Labradoodle of sugar.

Ken Brown  6:00  
Kind of natural, but it was forced. Yeah.

Eric Rieger  6:02  
It's kind of like a liger. You're not supposed to have them.

Ken Brown  6:08  
Did you ever see Dan Cummings? Chocolate squirrel doodle?

Eric Rieger  6:13  
Oh, the comedian.

Ken Brown  6:15  
He does a whole set on this exact topic. Yeah, mixing animals that shouldn't be missed. Anyways, off topic already, wow, are are super fast episode. on time, DeRay. A lot of the time. Everything you're saying is true. Let's just put a little historical context into it. So basically, since the 1920s, there have been farm subsidies. So the US government has said, okay, we need to help out. We've got a great depression going on, let's make sure we have enough food for everybody. And then, through a series of events, which I'm not an economist, but basically the 1960s. During the Nixon administration, there was a series of events like a couple bad harvest years, and then we made a bad decision to sell millions of tons of grains to the Soviet Union. And all of a sudden, we ended up with a shortage. This shortage, of course, led to the overcorrection, which happens in government at the federal level a lot. It's like driving down an icy road, you turn a little bit here and go well, and then you overcorrect and now you're spinning out of control. Yeah. So in the 1960s, they started this subsidies program where they were going to subsidize farmers and ultimately, the most...