Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Good Advice, Despite Source

The Corn Refiners Association wants us to know that, nutritionally speaking, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) isn't the villain it's made out to be.

The association, whose members produce more than 23.5 billion pounds of high-fructose corn syrup a year, has mounted a campaign to spread the word that the sweetener is no worse for people than sugar or honey.

The CRA has been running ads to drive its point home; it also has ginned up a survey showing that moms sending kids back to school worry about the wrong things in terms of nutrition, fingering things such as HFCS instead of looking at overall calorie consumption.

I hate to admit it -- and don't get me wrong, I don't think corn syrup is health food or that the industry has anything but its own best interests in mind -- but I think the group is right on this one. The American Medical Association in June issued a report saying there's not enough evidence to prove that HFCS contributes to overweight, obesity or diabetes any more than other sweeteners. (The report does note that more research is needed.)

-- Jennifer Huget

alternatively wrote:

you could just switch to products that don't have the HFCS. Naturally sweetened jelly and juice is easy to find if you check the label before you buy it.

Jason wrote:

I am trying to cut back my family's intake of HFCS, but this stuff is apparently such a cheap replacement for regular sugar that it has crept into a vast number of items. My biggest peeve currently is the lack of wheat bread product that steers clear of HFCS. My choices are greatly limited in the bread aisle.

E wrote:

You have to hunt at the grocery store to find wheat bread, wheat burger buns, etc., that don't have HFCS, so we bought a bread machine and make our own bread now. The main solution for us has been to make more of our food from more raw ingredients, and look at labels.

Knee Surgery: Useless?

Bad news for creaky baby boomers: There's strong new evidence out that arthroscopic surgery is useless for arthritis of the knee.

Researchers at the University of Western Ontario in Canada studied 178 men and women suffering from moderate to severe arthritis in their knees. The patients all got standard medical treatment, including physical therapy, painkillers such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, glucosamine supplements and injections to lubricate the joint. Eighty-six of the patients also underwent arthroscopic surgery, which involves inserting instruments through tiny incisions to clean out any loose debris and smooth out the joint. Their conditions were then compared with those who did not have the surgery.

Tests done every six months for the next two years showed that both groups improved, reporting less pain and stiffness and more mobility. But the patients who did not get surgery did just as well as those who got the operations, the researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

-- Rob Stein

Helena Montana wrote:

My four-year-old titanium knee, on the other hand, is working just fine!

Draesop wrote:

Procedures pay! The more procedures available to a specialty or subspecialty, the more money one makes. Cognition is not rewarded, so that thinking about and speaking with a patient is becoming a lost art.

This joins a long list of medical procedures which may have some use but are more often abused by those whom we trust to use them appropriately. The one gaining the least is the patient.

naner wrote:

I'm 43 and I had knee surgery about 7 yrs ago. I remember fighting with my doctors and my insurance company about having it since they didn't see the need for it. After the surgery was done, the surgeon told me of all the damage that my knee suffered and the amount of debris (cartilage and other stuff) that he removed. I wonder: if the surgery was done sooner, would I be in the amount of pain I'm in every day? The study will only give insurance companies more motive to deny the surgery to others. I wonder why the study was only done on older patients. What about folks my age that have knee issues?