My understanding of the research to date was that corn syrup was not worse than the equivalent sweetness or caloric value of sugar. (the reason for the fructose ratio is precisely to give the same perceived sweetness per calorie). This study either changes that, or is flawed. For now I'll just continue to stay away from soda pop.
Also, if the hypothesis in the article is correct (that anything other than a <1 ratio of sucrose/fructose may be the cause of the observed obesity affect), this affects all fruit juices and probably whole fruits as well. However, it looks like bananas are about 1:1 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose ) and berries and citrus have less fructose than sucrose ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption )
As stuartjmoore linked, Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology lays the chemistry out in excruciating detail. His 90 minute video is well worth watching. I even got my mom to watch it.
My understanding of the research to date was that corn syrup was not worse than the equivalent sweetness or caloric value of sugar. (the reason for the fructose ratio is precisely to give the same perceived sweetness per calorie). This study either changes that, or is flawed.
That may be a false dichotomy, because I see two flaws in that view: 1) that all calories are created equal, and that the specific way that a given kind of sugar is metabolized does not matter. (It does matter.) 2) That the per-unit sweetness property of HFCS is actually leveraged by the food industry to hold sweetness constant and use proportionally less HFCS. (It looks like they actually tend to use more, because sweetness sells.)
I agree with others that the Robert Lustig video is well worth watching.
Also, if the hypothesis in the article is correct (that anything other than a <1 ratio of sucrose/fructose may be the cause of the observed obesity affect), this affects all fruit juices and probably whole fruits as well. However, it looks like bananas are about 1:1 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose ) and berries and citrus have less fructose than sucrose ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption )