Diabetes fears over corn syrup in soda

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It's not cast-iron proof that high-fructose corn syrup causes diabetes, but new evidence suggests we should think twice about using it to sweeten soft drinks.

Chi-Tang Ho at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and his colleagues found that adding the syrup to fizzy drinks makes them up to 10 times richer in harmful carbonyl compounds - elevated in people with diabetes and blamed for causing diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage - than fizzy drinks containing cane sugar.

The most harmful compound, called methylglyoxal, is known to damage cells directly. "The link between methylglyoxal and diabetic complications is well documented," says Ho, whose team found carbonyl compounds in 11 popular brands of soft drink sweetened with the syrup.

High-fructose corn syrup is popular in the US, where import tariffs make cane sugar relatively expensive. It is made by treating corn starch with ...                                                            

The complete article is 336 words long.