#42 High Fructose Corn Syrup: Avoiding it Could 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 abundant crops were wheat, corn and soy. Okay. So then this was started, because through a lot of different reasons, those were the ones that were subsidized the most. And then in 1996, it was discovered, oh, we’ve way over corrected, we’ve got way too much of this stuff. So the federal government put in new mandates, which then said, Okay, we’re not going to subsidize this anymore. But since we were doing it for so long, everybody that was subsidized gets grandfathered in, at the rate that we’ve been doing. And since the major crops were corn, wheat and soybean, they got subsidized. And they were grandfathered in whether or not they grew, the crops paid did not grow anything Hey, did not grow. And guess who wasn’t getting paid at all. The farmers that were growing fruits and vegetables, they got squeezed out immediately. So, so now you’ve got these farmers that are being paid with our tax dollars to make more of a grain that we don’t even know what to do it.

Eric Rieger 8:20
I know we’re gonna get into it. But you’re telling me that essentially, we have a food additive that is being subsidized. So now it’s already somewhat less expensive for not only a producer of foods, but even the consumer to get its hands on now. Right? So we’ve reducing the threshold of normal people to get their hands on the substance. Surely, since we weren’t doing that with fruits and vegetables, it must be better for us, right?

Ken Brown 8:47
So what happened was, we have all this corn. And some Japanese scientists in the late 90s figured out that when you add a couple chemicals, natural enzymatic chemicals, you produce this high fructose corn syrup, since we’re already subsidizing it. And it’s really easy to make, then it’s 70% cheaper than standard sugar cane or standard cane sugar. So automatically, you’ve got a 70% advantage. So then they realized oh my gosh, it’s also two times as sweet as sugar. And look, it works as a food preservative. We just found the holy grail of the food industry. So it just exploded. And in fact, since then, or since it was discovered how to make high fructose corn syrup 1,000% increase in our consumption has taken place. It’s ridiculous thousand percent. So our ancestors would normally take in. I don’t remember the exact numbers let’s but I think it’s somewhere around 20 grams of sugar in a year.

Eric Rieger 9:53
Now we’re in a bit just just to categorize that’s not including just fruits and stuff. You’re talking about just raw sugar and and another Think just for context, today’s standard is just try to consume less than 22 grams of sugar a day a

Ken Brown 10:08
day. So in other words, right now, without even trying, most of us are consuming what our ancestors did in a year, in a day. So you said, Surely it must be better for us. It’s not and quit calling me surely I don’t know how many times we’ve talked about

Eric Rieger 10:25
airplane.

Ken Brown 10:28
Alright, so real briefly, we’re gonna get a little sciency, then we’re gonna do a quick deep dive and then come right back out. So just hang in there. But the whole point of this is we don’t want to make it political. But it is impossible to not discuss some of the political aspects of it, because it’s because of the subsidies that we’re here on. Let’s be clear, and if you identify as either right or left, believe me, both sides are involved. This is not exonerated either side whatsoever. All right. So why do you even care about fruit dose? Well, glucose, which is the sugar that we always talk about, right? table sugar is sucrose and glucose combined, and then all of a sudden we start throwing then it’s fructose right about now a bunch of people are just going that’s too many else’s, like I agree with you. So let’s focus on the one else. fructose. fructose is the only sugar which is metabolized in the liver, it does not need insulin to drive it into the cell. Glucose is used by every cell in your body, fructose goes straight to the liver, right. And it’s when it goes to the liver, that it has to be broken down and then metabolized. That doesn’t happen with that. So we’ve got this very cheap sugar that is metabolized in an unnatural way, right. And it’s not used for energy. And we’re going to come full circle here. But basically, we now know that fructose consumption has epidemiologically been connected directly to the diabesity epidemic that we have. And now I can tell you in a little bit on a cellular level, how it actually does that. But we’ve already mentioned that you said it lasts longer. So if you’re going to go out, and you’ve got a granola bar or an apple, and you go Oh, the granola bar is healthy. That’s nature made set it is that commercial showed hikers there and sure the commercial doesn’t show somebody pulling an apple out of the backpack because an Apple has a shelf life, right? The granola bar can sit there forever, and it sits forever because they hide the sugars in it. Right? You don’t even think of that now. And then we talk about other foods that are there. So when we’re sitting there taking this for people that are like, Oh, I like this food better. I like this bread better. I don’t know if you saw that, that an Ireland, they they won’t allow subway to call in a sandwich. They can’t call it.

Eric Rieger 12:37
I don’t think they can call it a

Ken Brown 12:38
brandy. They can’t call it a bread because the sugar content is five times higher than what bread should be.

Eric Rieger 12:43
Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s alarming. Like, it’s not like, Oh, I can’t believe they don’t let us call us bread. Well, they can’t call it bread because it’s not bread. Yeah.

Ken Brown 12:51
Um, the interesting thing is that it is actually extremely addictive because it is two times sweeter than sugar. So you condition your body to watch that sweetness. Sure. And then we can get into exactly why all this is going on. The irony of it all is that actually makes people hungry right? Now I just told you about an article where you have ADHD because your brain cells are starving. Sure. Now, we know that when you take this, what does that mean? Tell me one benefit, other than it’s cheap, and you can sell more products, but you get no nutritional value out of it. And you actually cause damage as you take it. Like it’s like if you start with that they wouldn’t allow it to be made ever.

Eric Rieger 13:34
I mean, quite honestly, it sounds to me like every advantage is somewhat sinister. It’s it’s there is no advantage about this. There’s not a direct advantage that I’m aware of, for the person that’s consuming it. And I think that’s that’s really what we need to be concerned about. Because we’re consumers we

Ken Brown 13:51
Yeah, we do. And fortunately, we’re consumers that are doing a podcast that a microbrewery that uses all natural ingredients, and they’re very conscious about not doing that. We’re consumers that are in the health field. Correct. And unfortunately, the burden of diabetes high blood pressure and death in the poorer socio economic areas is much higher than the general population. Yes. And then when you start reading about it, they consume they being people in poor social economic neighborhoods and in cities, they may not have access, they may not have the money nor access for healthy foods. I don’t mean healthy. I mean just something that isn’t fast food or in a package

Eric Rieger 14:35
right and most fast food is going to be made with high fructose corn syrup and other additives don’t don’t get me wrong. There’s others out there. It’s not by itself, but we’re talking specifically about high fructose corn syrup today. And you’re you’re correct. The subsidy has made it to where that’s what is obtainable. That’s what they can eat because it’s cheaper for the producers to Make it because it’s a subsidized product because it serves as commodity. It doesn’t make sense. We are making it easier for taxpayers to subsidize people who don’t have money to get sick and stay sick. And they have this anxiety. It’s a horrific cycle. Because if they’re trying to climb out of poverty, guess what? They don’t feel normal. They’re not thinking, like they should be

Ken Brown 15:21
that article that discuss the impulsivity. Yeah, that really got me thinking, right? I mean, we always blame we try and blame so many things on different aspects. Oh, we’re obese because we’re not getting enough exercise. And I can get into a whole different aspect of this where the Corn Growers Association hired scientists to put out public statements that basically said, high fructose corn syrup is really good for you. You’re just not working out enough.

Eric Rieger 15:49
Yeah, it’s ridiculous.

Ken Brown 15:50
And then we’re looking at this, you’re like, wait a minute, areas that have the highest burden of obesity, and have high blood pressure and diabetes, which lead to this huge cost burden in the United States have the highest consumption of high fructose corn syrup. Yet, there’s people out there saying, Oh, it’s not related. They’re just not getting out there jogging enough. Now, that is, I’m going to give you cellular reasons why this is wrong. But if you don’t care about it, and I know that we’re going to talk some politics on the next episode, if you look at the pure numbers, since high fructose corn syrup came on the market,

Eric Rieger 16:26
right.

Ken Brown 16:27
And we’re taking 1000 times more than we used to, it is estimated that right now, 60% of the adult population is overweight. The prevalence of insulin dependent type two diabetes, that means diabetes that didn’t respond to medications, and you eventually have to go to insulin is 9.3% of the population. Pre diabetics is through the roof, they’re estimated that about 30% of the US population right now is pre diabetic. It’s sad. 60%. It’s, it’s sad. It’s also really expensive. Yeah, I’m gonna put you on the spot. How much do you think the burden of this cost the US annually? Thank you for putting me on the spot. And I will say eleventy billion dollars, because I don’t know the number that is very close to 327 billion, because it’s, it’s encompassing the health care costs of this, that’s ridiculous. If we could fix one thing if we could fix obesity and diabetes. Sure, if you take out diabetes, just the causes, just the morbidity of obesity Sure, is like 192 billion. And if you look at diabetes, 327 billion, that includes loss of work when people get sick, and you know, all the other weird numbers they put in there. 320. Okay, so imagine if we could sit there and get roughly 527 billion off the tax records off of our tax burden. And all we got to do is take one food subsidies. So we’re paying taxes that are now going and making people

Eric Rieger 17:56
sicker. And it’s by it’s by design, if you just step back and look at

Ken Brown 18:00
and then right now in 2021 of the hottest topics and always is every election year is healthcare. What do we do with health care? We need Medicare for All we need this. We need that. Now. How about taking one thing that we’re already paying for his tax dollars, converting it to something that the European nation is actively trying to ban 100% they’re out, they’re gone. We don’t want to do this. And then what’s really sad is when you introduce high fructose corn syrup, and I’m not trying to pick on anybody, but it’s a soda company that ends in Ola. Ah, Mmm hmm. It’s couple of them. Yep. You pick which Ola you want. Alright, so they’ve so they’ve looked at this, and one of the older companies did a real big campaign paid for their own studies, and got it introduced in Mexico. And now Mexico is almost caught up to us and diabetes, and obesity. And somehow, same thing happened in China. I mean, China says, FU to everything whenever they want, but somehow one of the older companies got in there, if you want to learn about that watch Patriot Act, because Minaj Hassan did a whole thing on this where he was like, How in the world can we not negotiate with China, but the older company just went in and said, pow do it. And now they’re running into the exact same problems. He showed different commercials that they’re running. And they had they, they gave them articles which show the same thing. Coca Cola has their own research institute, and they come out with things that say high fructose corn syrup is actually good for you. And you just need to exercise more. exercise more.

Eric Rieger 19:37
Yeah, I mean, it’s ridiculous. If if you wanted to make certain that your bank was secure, it would be a bad idea or policy to get the robbers who are going to heist you later to check your security system, because that’s exactly what’s happening here. It doesn’t make sense to take the data from somebody who is wanting to sell you what they’re telling you is safe just on the other side. Yeah. They’re the only ones who have the data that show that. Think about it. If you’re hearing that high fructose corn syrup is okay for you, who is putting together study? And what did they study? Interesting? Is there a study? Or is it just a kind of a? We feel like it’s, it’s okay, was there actual data that showed a reproducible, less than 0.5 p value?

Ken Brown 20:26
I went down a little journal searching rabbit hole, because I did that thing you’re not supposed to do when you read the whole thing. And at the end was, there’s no way that studies so I started going through our Mendeley account and stuff, and then it said unpublished data,

Eric Rieger 20:41
so they don’t believe in it.

Ken Brown 20:43
So they brought a PhD to stand up and go, it’s good for you. We did a study on that. Trust me, it’s right there. Right there in my brain. didn’t even get it published.

Eric Rieger 20:53
Yeah. I mean, if you come home and your newspapers torn up and the trash is out, and you ask the dog, did he do it? And they go, No, he did it. The dog did it. It’s the same thing. They did. The the study is not real. They’re just saying it.

Ken Brown 21:07
Yeah. That happened to me when I was a kid once and I yelled at our dog, it actually was a raccoon.

Eric Rieger 21:12
couldn’t believe he didn’t call me up or dog saying no.

Ken Brown 21:17
All right. So even if you’re sitting here, and if one of those scientists is listening to this, and he’s like, no, I looked at the data. It’s there. That’s fine. Let’s back off all that. Let’s back off speculation. I want to talk about an article that was just published about two weeks ago. The title of the article is the negative and detrimental effects of high fructose on the liver with special reference to metabolic disorders published in the Journal of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. It’s a lot, we got to teach these guys how to write their name. Because I got tired Listen, just kind of reading through the title. But what I just I’m gonna just go over the key points to this. Yeah. And then you make your own conclusion about this. So what this article looks at is let’s talk about the cellular mechanisms. This isn’t speculation anymore. This isn’t taught let’s just look exactly what’s going on on a cellular level. Okay. So what actually happens is, we may have to put the nerd glasses on, I always carry him around in case it gets too nerdy when you go, you need to back off,

Eric Rieger 22:11
Clark.

Ken Brown 22:12
so got the nerd glasses on. Basically, you already know that fructose is metabolized in the liver. So I’m going to go through a five step process, okay, have a two part reason why high fructose corn syrup is messing you up. Okay. Okay. So we know since it’s metabolized by the liver, step one, the liver tries to metabolize all this fructose that it’s getting in, and it quickly cannot do it. So the liver converts it to triglycerides, or fat that so you start having these fat depositions in your liver, step two, the fat starts accumulating, and we call this fatty liver disease, right, the fat starts accumulating, and as a result of this, fructose becomes harder to metabolize. So in other words, the fructose is going, Hey, I’m here, I need to be metabolized. And these fat cells are just going like, man, we don’t know what to do. Sure, because we’re not built to do this, right. So then you end up with this snowball effect. And then that fructose that’s sitting around starts impairing other processes, one of them being something called a beta oxidation process, where if you’re a medical student, they go, Oh, that’s how you break down fat. So you impair the ability to break down fat. So you impair the ability to break it down. And what that means is, is that it can’t metabolize fat, so it leads to fat just sitting there, and it starts creating other problems. So step three, is a decrease in ATP, adenosine triphosphate. That is the energy that our cells you, you have to have it, I’m going to throw it back to the article that my patients sent me yesterday. So what happens is you get a decrease in ATP, which is the energy for mitochondria, that’s the powerhouse in the cell. When this happens, the body increases and expression of an enzyme which I’d never heard of, and nobody’s ever taught me this. So it almost feels like a cover up called fructokinase C. Okay, fructokinase C. So when fruto kinase c starts ramping up to get rid of the fat, all this other thing, it actually destroys more ATP, as it turns out, fructokinase C is a bad thing for around in your body. Sure. So it actually starts breaking down what little ATP you’re making. And then this increases something called uric acid, which leads to a very vicious cycle of the fat not being able to metabolize, and then more fat comes up and then you start decreasing the cellular energy and now you’ve produced uric acid. And this vicious cycle actually creates severe stress on the cell, which leads to reactive oxygen species. I don’t know if you Remember a few episodes back we talked about how one of the leading causes of obesity is oxidative stress. Yeah.

Eric Rieger 25:05
Rs

Ken Brown 25:07
Rs right there. And then guess what’s happening. There’s this battle going on, fat is just showing up because they don’t really care. The body’s trying to get rid of that. ATP is being used to try and offset this fructokinase C. And then you’ve got a mitochondria that are sitting there going, yo, we have no energy here, right? I’ve got no energy. And the brain cells go we have no energy. I’m gonna go forage. impulsivity, ADHD bipolar. So not only are you actually putting on weight, but you’re starving, like there isn’t. There’s it’s a lose, lose lose situation. Right. Does that make sense? Can Can you summarize that really quick? Because I feel like I got a little too deep in the woods.

Eric Rieger 25:50
Sure. I think while we have someone here, briefly announcing this behind. Not really announcing us behind this makes no, it makes no sense. It’s even throwing me off. But I do think that I could somewhat summarize what we’re talking about.

Ken Brown 26:04
I, I’ll tell you what, I’ve been listening to what he’s saying. He’s like, Listen, everybody, if you’re, if you’re if you’re here. Now, I just learned a lot about high fructose corn syrup. I want everybody here in the audience, too. And so I love that, that he’s actually doing that for us. Thank you. I mean, I like it when we make that big of a difference that quick.

Eric Rieger 26:20
Yeah, everybody’s on board now. Yeah. So I what I do, when I hear is they bring in high fructose corn syrup, we don’t know how to metabolize it, or our cells don’t know how to metabolize it is now giving us too much uric acid, which I actually made me think of. There’s a close association between high fructose corn syrup consumption and gout.

Ken Brown 26:38
Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And

Eric Rieger 26:41
beyond that, when your body doesn’t know how to handle this, you’re just going to keep storing fat. And when it didn’t have the energy, because you’re destroying adenosine triphosphate, where you can’t break it down to ADP, your cells can’t, then essentially, it’s going to keep looking for food. While you keep packing on fat. You’re going to keep looking for food. While you’re packing on fat, consume more high fructose corn syrup, pack on fat, keep looking for food, because you’re not feeding yourself. You’re not gonna keep burning the brain because the brain needs what it’s not getting.

Ken Brown 27:13
Yeah. So now part two of this vicious little cycle that’s just going on in the liver. So as it turns out, the liver in its attempt to get rid of the fructose just produces tons of this Fructokinace C. Oh, can I see that then floats around and goes to my special origin, the small intestine? Oh, yeah. Where What does it do it inactive. It makes the cells insulin resistant. So this made total sense to me where that study that we’ve talked about before I’ve talked about with my patients, where people that drink diet, cokes, have a higher propensity to develop diabetes right? Now that makes sense. They’re taking in high fructose corn syrup, even if it is in the form of some artificial sweetener and things like that. I’m always always like, man, how’s that happening? Well, bacteria break it down. And ultimately, you end up with fructose and the liver has to, you know, do this insulin resistance, the fructokinase c creates insulin resistance through a process called glute five, and all those other imacon get as nerdy as you want on this. Because I don’t want it to be an opinion piece. I want it to be like, Look, this is what’s happening. Sure level. So then fructokinase C gets into the small bow where data causes leaky gut.

Eric Rieger 28:29
It just is a never ending cycle. I have not heard one of the redeeming qualities. You told me you were going to tell me about high fructose corn syrup.

Ken Brown 28:36
I thought we were just gonna do the usual Oh, it looks like it’s associated with this. And I found this article where they’re like, no, it actually does this little tiny thing here that leads to this that leads to this that leads to this. So now, I mean, we always talk about how bacterial overgrowth can cause leaky gut or intestinal permeability. We talked about how glyphosate does it. Now, if you’re taking in high fructose corn syrup, you’re developing intestinal permeability, which allows the endotoxins to actually get absorbed directly, which then go to the brain. leaky gut, leaky brain. That’s right. So one of the things that I always tell my patients, we want to avoid gluten, I want you to avoid products with glyphosate. I actually mistakenly have not been saying the most important thing to take out of your diet is high fructose corn syrup. I’ve been harping on certain molecules. Now I realize oh my gosh, this could be the root cause of a lot of the problems. Okay,

Eric Rieger 29:31
so this is a this is an important intersection, I think right here. And I think it’s it goes for everybody go it went for me. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. We weren’t told that because we weren’t meant to find out about it. This was something I mean, our own federal government does subsidize corn. And the corn refiners Association presses hard every year they they compete with the Archer Daniels Midland. It’s Edra, who run the sugar lobby, they, they fight over who gets the sweetener lobby money. I mean, and then they they’re strange bedfellows they work together in, in in advocating sweeteners in certain foods. But the moment it comes down to which sweetener is going to go into your food, trust me, they fight over that. And Archer Daniels Midland who represents and Cargill who represent lots of sugar cane growers, they fight with the corn refiners Association. And I hate to say it, but in this instance, I sided with sugar, because at least it’s somewhat natural, and our bodies, at least know what to do with it.

Ken Brown 30:37
So imagine if I’m producing this, and I’m selling this to a large corporation, I came up with a molecule. When you eat sugar. You need insulin to drive it into the cell, right? When you have insulin in your body, it gives you the sensation of being full. How does it do it? Because when insulin is there, a hormone called leptin. Yep, a hormone called leptin goes up and says, yo, we’ve had enough to eat. So if you’re somebody that really struggles with your weight, and you’re over there going, I’m trying I do not know. And people talk about sugar addictions. And yes, we know that sugar can have the same effects as cocaine and things like that high fructose corn syrup will, will do the exact same thing. Oh, icing on the cake, high fructose corn syrup, blunts the leptin response. Yeah,

Eric Rieger 31:30
well, I mean, it’s already blocking what insulin does? Yes. So it now you’re giving me a sweetener that doesn’t let me know that I’ve technically had enough food, even though it didn’t give me any calories that I needed in the first place. Exactly.

Ken Brown 31:43
And so you’ve got the situation where it is the perfect storm, if you’re a corn grower, or if you manufacture high fructose corn syrup. Or if you are a manufacturer of something that is processed foods, right? Or if you’re an insurance company, or a hospital, or anybody that benefits with the detriment of health. It’s crazy. It’s like you cannot, it’s all it’s almost like a biological weapon.

Eric Rieger 32:13
pretend for a moment, you’re a junk food manufacturer, I’m going to come to you and I’m going to tell you, okay, Listen, I’ve got an ingredient, it’s going to replace that sugar that you’re putting in your foods. And at first, you’re like, Well, why would I want to do it, because it’s going to give you a longer shelf life, it’s going to keep people coming back, they’re probably going to consume three to five times as much as they normally would. And on top of that, it’s inexpensive, because the government is is paying down the cost. Sold right sold because you don’t care about the person who’s buying it, you’re just wanting to sell it. That’s what they’ve done to you. That’s what they’ve done to the public.

Ken Brown 32:52
If you eat any fast food, high fructose corn syrup, if you’re opening a package, high fructose corn syrup,

Eric Rieger 32:59
go to you know, the other day, we’re talking about ketchup, and we need to give credit where credit’s due. Okay, so Heinz 57, ketchup and see it and all the grocery stores. If you go and look in most shelves, now they actually offer a natural, or organic Heinz ketchup now. And if you look closely there, it says, advertises no high fructose corn syrup, it’s regular sugar. There’s a reason behind that because the word is getting out. And if you want more choices like that, then make the correct choice for yourself. So with this show, we want to arm you with the information. This isn’t really a joke, look at a picture of people gathered on the streets hanging out in the 60s and 70s. Again, just simply compared to today, I won’t tell you what you’re looking at, just look at a group of people. And then look at a group of people today. It does not look the same. And you can’t blame it on laziness. I wasn’t wanting to say this to laziness, there have been lazy people around for generations for centuries. They’re lazy people that existed back in the 70s that have way worked out or whatever else. We still didn’t look like this. It doesn’t make sense.

Ken Brown 34:05
I think we just gave a pretty compelling argument of so much of it is not your fault, right? And I hear that from my patients. They’re try and then even well intentioned people going well, I meeting mine, I don’t want to I have not done the due diligence to look, but let’s just pretend like it’s a Lean Cuisine or something. The fact that it’s got a shelf life probably means it’s got some high fructose corn syrup. Yeah. And if it’s got some high fructose corn syrup, all this stuff is happening to you. And at the very top, it’s you’re not going to get full, because you don’t have a hormone that says you’re full, and then it just starts dripping down. Oh, your brain is going to be starving. So you’re going to be more anxious, you’re going to have anxiety, you’re going to have impulsivity, oh, and then all of a sudden, you’re getting fatter, your liver can’t process it. Now you’ve got intestinal permeability. And then the one thing that is my passion, that probably is the least relevant to everybody out there, it affects the microbiome, you decrease your microbial diversity. It’s not. It’s literally poison.

Eric Rieger 35:09
It’s poison. And I did challenge yourself. So you’ll notice they’re like, I don’t mind giving these guys a shout out, Justin, Justin’s little peanut butter chocolate.

Ken Brown 35:19
Yeah.

Eric Rieger 35:20
So what makes Justin’s unique if you pay attention to it, they are made with real sugar. And so all of the different flavors of Justin’s peanut if they have something sweetened, because they also have just like nut butters and things like that. But they’re Almond Butter Cups, peanut butter cups, a walnut Butter Cups, or cashews, whatever it is, but they’re all made with regular sugar. And then they may be slightly more expensive, but just go and compare that to your standard gas station candy aisle. I’m not gonna have to say any names. Just go look, the first ingredient is going to be high fructose corn syrup. It’s cheaper, they don’t care. And of course you want it. You want it because your brains been programmed to want it. That urge just make the leap and start fun. I’m not I’m not at this point. I’m saying avoid sugar, just pick the right time. And it will at least start allowing your body to react appropriately to the sweetener.

Ken Brown 36:13
Absolutely, you can you can retrain, you can do this. We, I feel like I tilt at windmills, you know, the Don Quixote style, I feel like I tilt at various windmills. I just I don’t know how I missed this. It’s, it’s like it. It’s been camouflaged. Yeah, out there. And I’m like, that’s the truth thing that we need to make our mantra here.

Eric Rieger 36:36
Another thing to think of to kids, if you’re making your kids lunch, check the bread. In our I purposefully went through the grocery store that we have close to our house here recently, and just checked all the different breads, there’s a I think I counted, there was a 47 different kinds of breads and bread brands to, to mass produce bread brands had a line, not even all of the lines had a line that didn’t have high fructose corn syrup. And like their wheat bread, for instance, the rest of them do,

Ken Brown 37:10
don’t buy that. Well. And then the other thing, they’re catching on to this. So I started looking at labels. Also, it goes by a bunch of different names. Oh, almost made up names by the food industry, where they and I wrote them down someplace because I was like, so annoyed by it. It’s like they when you look it up, you’re like, Ah, that’s high fructose corn syrup. And they call it like something else, like whatever. And other countries are starting to do this now where they’ll name at different things. So it’s like, okay, to avoid it, try not to open packages, refined foods, try and eat those whole foods on the outside of the grocery aisle where they really want you to walk in, go down that middle aisle, they want you to hit those cookies right away. Because that’s it’s cheap for the grocery store. They know that you’re going to buy them it’s hard to not buy it that go on the outside, get some whole food first. And then really try to because once you start that path, it’s it’s super, it’s super hard. So I don’t know, I it opened my eyes to be honest. I mean, one of the reasons why I love doing the show is that we I get the opportunity to take a few moments to look at something where I normally wouldn’t. This is one of them.

Eric Rieger 38:16
Yeah. And I love the show because we get to get into subject matter that just like you said, it’s it’s bringing something to your attention. I think that this is a topic that maybe I’ve kicked around with family members or friends but I even at times, I don’t know how seriously I took it until I decided to do the research myself I my last soda, my last sugared high fructose corn syrup soda was several years ago, but that was buying. That was on purpose. It was by design, I wanted to stop consuming that stuff. It wasn’t easy, but doing it, I feel better doing it. And I want I just really want everybody else to have the same opportunity, same information. There’s no reason for us to keep in this crazy cycle. We only live once of feeling sick, not feeling our best. I want you to enjoy your life. There’s

Ken Brown 39:06
no reason to do this, the idea that on a federal level, we’re paying taxes to produce this to make us sicker. I mean, if I were a politician, if I were in charge, I’d be like, subsidies are now shifted to fruits and vegetables, corn, you’ve had your run. No more grandfathered in subsidies. You can’t just have excess corn you don’t know what to do with. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna convert it to high fructose corn syrup. We’re going to feed it to our animals. We’re going to do this. I know that there’s a role for it. I also know that it’s, oh my gosh, I was trying to do some research on this. And I discovered a Netflix video called corn or something like that. Okay, this is this is wild. It was in Iowa. These guys from Boston, found out that they had relatives generations before and they wanted to see what it’s like to farm corn. So they got a one acre plot and then they kind of lived in this little Iowa town. I’m about halfway through it, but it’s really this is really awesome. So they planted their corn, and then weeds started coming up weeds. And the guy pulls it up. And it’s hemp. Oh, wow. It’s hemp. That’s how much hemp is wants to grow. It’s like I want to be here. Yeah. And then what do they do? Very good, glyphosate, whatever thing and they just kill everything in between the corn. And then all of a sudden, you’re taking high fructose corn syrup, and you’re adding glyphosate and chemicals and stuff to it. And so we’re taking poison, I’m going to give you arsenic, and then you’re going to mix it in gasoline and drink it.

Eric Rieger 40:35
It’s funny the same as getting gasoline, because they also make ethanol and all that excess corn. Hey, yeah. I mean, just, I don’t know, this episode is a great, a great introduction for our next show.

Ken Brown 40:48
Absolutely. That’s the whole purpose of doing this, that we understand that, you know, this is a lot to be thrown at you. But just take a second to look at it. And look at least look at the various names are called

Eric Rieger 40:58
One last thing I wanted to call back on a recent but previous episode, we had one two shows ago, I believe might have been three, where we talked about the increase in gi cancer in people. There is another study that we can’t get to today, it’s very, very in depth. Well, it’s not just one size, there’s several. But there’s one that really ties together our current day food additives, including high fructose corn syrup and the increasing incidence of gi cancer. It’s not a joke. It’s not something that we’re just trying to say, Oh, don’t eat sugar to not get But no, in fact, eat real sugar. If you have to have a sweet tooth, the study

Ken Brown 41:35
results were pretty simple. The equivalent of one can of soda a day resulted in increased cancer in mice.

Eric Rieger 41:42
Yeah. It’s It’s not good to say it’s and it’s horrific that our that our government subsidizes it and you mentioned it earlier, you can change the name of how you see them the label, you know how hard it is to to put an all natural product and what it is on a box. It’s actually good for you. The FDA is really hard on this.

Ken Brown 42:02
Yeah. So in case your Eric’s now holding up a box of atrantil no high fructose corn syrup, and I’ll turn to no so no additives, no additives, so it’s

Eric Rieger 42:11
a little annoying. Well, regardless, I’m pretty

Ken Brown 42:13
pumped about our next show coming up.

Eric Rieger 42:15
I am too so be certain to check out 42 right. This is 42 next one’s gonna be 43. Thank you. Paul Rogers went on the road with us by the way. Yeah,

Ken Brown 42:24
this is a special thanks once again to Southern Star All natural brewery. Southern Star here,

Eric Rieger 42:33
the whole thing. But seriously, so Episode 42. I think it’s gonna do it for today’s show, or for this

Ken Brown 42:38
particular show. Yeah, I’m proud of us in so many levels. This is the shortest show we’ve ever done. How many

Eric Rieger 42:43
minutes is that? We’re at like, 42. We’re only 12 minutes over. Well, thank you so much. This Eric Rieger with my co host, Kenneth Brown. that’s gonna do it for episode number 42. Be sure and check out the show notes. We’ve got information on getting in touch with Southern Star brewery as well as a think we may end up adding after we published some information on where we can find some of the studies specifically on high fructose corn syrup, and it’s dangerous to you.

Ken Brown 43:10
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for tuning in and definitely tune into the next one.

Eric Rieger 43:15
All right, see y’all then