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Still Spooked by High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Tara Parker-Pope

By now most everyone has seen ads from the Corn Refiners Association, claiming that our fears about high-fructose corn syrup are misplaced. Since our kids will soon be loading up on Halloween treats laden with the substance, it’s a good time to consider why so many people find corn sweeteners so scary.

Just this month, researchers from Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago took a look at the link between kidney disease and high-fructose corn syrup. Using data from nearly 9,400 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2004, they tracked consumption of sugary soft drinks, a major source of high-fructose corn syrup in the United States, and protein in the urine, a sensitive marker for kidney disease. They found that overall, people who drank two or more sugary sodas a day were at 40 percent higher risk for kidney damage, while the risk for women soda drinkers nearly doubled.

In June, the Journal of Hepatology suggested a link between consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in sodas and fatty liver disease.

And this summer, a small study published in The Journal of Nutrition suggested that fructose may make people fatter by bypassing the body’s regulation of sugars, which means it gets more quickly converted to fat than do other sugars.

Many scientists hypothesize that high-fructose corn syrup has contributed to rising obesity rates, although others say there is no solid evidence to support the theory. The corn refiners agree, dedicating a Web site to the “sweet surprise” of high-fructose corn syrup.

But we do know that foods made with high-fructose corn syrup are heavily processed and typically lack any meaningful nutritional value. And while the jury is out on the real effect high-fructose corn syrup has on obesity, we do know it’s a threat to the health of the planet.

As writer Michael Pollan told The Washington Post earlier this year, high-fructose corn syrup “may be cheap in the supermarket, but in the environment it could not be more expensive.”

Most corn is grown as a monoculture, meaning that the land is used solely for corn, not rotated among crops. This maximizes yields, but at a price: It depletes soil nutrients, requiring more pesticides and fertilizer while weakening topsoil.

“The environmental footprint of high-fructose corn syrup is deep and wide,” writes Pollan, a prominent critic of industrial agriculture. “Look no farther than the dead zone in the Gulf [of Mexico], an area the size of New Jersey where virtually nothing will live because it has been starved of oxygen by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi from the Corn Belt. Then there is the atrazine in the water in farm country — a nasty herbicide that, at concentrations as little as 0.1 part per billion, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites.”

This was an article written for the New York Times Health Section on October 30, 2008

High School Knee Injuries By Sport And Gender

Knee injuries, among the most economically costly sports injuries, are the leading cause of high school sports-related surgeries according to a study conducted at the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and published in the June issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

The researchers utilized data from the High School RIOTM online injury surveillance system which collects injury reports for nine high school sports from certified athletic trainers at 100 U.S. high schools selected to achieve a nationally representative sample. Data are collected for boys' football, soccer, basketball, baseball and wrestling and girls' soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball.

The knee was the second most frequently injured body site overall, with boys' football and wrestling and girls' soccer and basketball recording the highest rates of knee injury. The most common knee injuries were incomplete ligament tears, contusions, complete ligament tears, torn cartilage, fractures/dislocations and muscle tears.

"Knee injuries in high school athletes are a significant area for concern," said Dawn Comstock, PhD, CIRP principal investigator, faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and one of the study authors. "Knee injuries accounted for nearly 45 percent of all sports injury-related surgeries in our study. Knee surgeries are often costly procedures that can require extensive and expensive post-surgery rehabilitation and can increase risk for early onset osteoarthritis. Without effective interventions, the burden of knee surgeries and rehabilitation will continue to escalate as the number of high school athletes continues to grow."

Researchers also found several interesting gender patterns. For example, while boys had a higher overall rate of knee injury, girls' knee injuries were more severe. Girls were more likely to miss > 3 weeks of sports activity (as opposed to <1 week for boys) and were twice as likely to require surgery. Girls were also found to be twice as likely to incur major knee injuries as a result of non-contact mechanisms, often involving landing, jumping or pivoting.

"Parents of young female athletes should not overreact to these findings however," warned Comstock. "The long term negative health effects of a sedentary lifestyle far outweigh those of the vast majority of sports injuries."

The study also identified illegal sports activity as a risk factor for major knee injury in high school sports. Although illegal play was identified as a contributing factor in only 5.7 percent of all knee injuries, 20 percent of knee injuries resulting from illegal play required surgery. This finding suggests the importance of making it clear to athletes, parents, coaches, and officials that illegal play has the potential to cause serious injury.

Study authors stressed that monitoring trends through continued surveillance of high school sports injuries is essential to fully understand the mechanisms behind major knee injury. "The study of knee injury patterns in high school athletics is crucial for the development of evidence-based targeted injury prevention measures," Comstock added. "We know that sports injury rates can be decreased through such efforts."

Nationwide Children's Hospital (2008, May 23). High School Knee Injuries By Sport And Gender.

SWOBAT Softball Clinic

This past weekend I had the chance of spending time with Crystl Bustos and Jenny Finch at the SWOBAT Softball Camp. These two athletes are at the peak of their game and for good reason. It was my first time meeting Crystl and I was totally impressed by her energy, knowledge of the game and her enthusiasm for teaching young athletes.

I have known Jenny since my days with the Cincinnati Reds. We did a special with This Week in Baseball, where she would pitch to MLB players to see who could hit her fastball. Sean Casey hit the ball about two feet in front of him. The funny thing was, he was the only player in MLB that year to make contact.

But the thing that impressed me the most about the weekend was the desire of athletes and parents to learn from some of the most successful softball players on the planet. The truth of the matter is that true success comes to those who truly want it. You could see both athletes and parents really interested in how Crystl and Jenny carried themselves, what kind of instruction was being taught, what could they take from this day and become better athletes and teammates.

It was a special two days and something that will help me better understand the athletes we work with and how to make our programs work better and more efficient for you.

I was invited to speak about the benefits of strength and conditioning for softball. Softball athletes tend to injure shoulders, low back and knees the most throughout the season. So strength and conditioning becomes an integral part of softball training.

When developing strength and conditioning programs it's critical to determine what are some of the most injury prone areas in your sport. By focusing on these areas early in your program, you strengthen the weak links, become more efficient and reduce the probability of getting injured.

One of the most important components of your program should be a comprehensive warm-up that will activate, mobilize and prepare the body for the game. Include various movements with the goal of increasing body temperature. You may want to start with joint rotations, gently twisting and bending movements usually followed by jogging, jumping rope or light calisthenics. Divide the routine into passive, active and dynamics movements.

If you would like to learn more about our warm-ups and speed-strength and conditioning programs, please visit www.swobat.org