High Fructose Corn Syrup(HFCS) has been directly linked to the obesity epidemic in the US, partly because of the nature of the sweetener itself( we’ll go into that later) and partly because of its ubiquity. It is found in virtually every processed food in the supermarket, from sodas to soups(!!), from crackers and cookies to pizza. It is found in stuff you would not normally think contains sugar, and therein lies the problem.

I’ve always been leery of HFCS because it has seemed to me to be such an artificial way of making a sweetener. (A quick check of my larder revealed the presence of HFCS in just two products – Ritz crackers and saltines.)Check out this nausea-inducing article for how corn syrup is really made.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by processing corn starch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. …Three different enzymes are needed to break down cornstarch.

First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers.

Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top….

The fructose in the corn syrup is not absorbed by the body the way glucose is. Says one doctor –

Glucose causes the pancreas to release insulin which drives sugar from the bloodstream into cells. Glucose causes fat cells to release leptin that makes you feel full so you eat less. Glucose prevents the stomach from releasing ghrelin that makes you hungry. On the other hand, fructose does not cause fat cells to release leptin and does not suppress ghrelin. This means that fructose increases hunger to make you eat more. Furthermore, the liver converts fructose far more readily to a body fat called triglyceride, than it does with glucose. High triglyceride levels raise blood levels of the bad LDL cholesterol and lower blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol, which increases heart attack risk. Recent data shows that large amounts of fructose cause insulin resistance, impair glucose tolerance, produce high levels of insulin, raise triglycerides, and cause high blood pressure in animals.

To be fair, cane sugar also contains similar proportions of fructose and glucose. But the way the glucose and fructose molecules bond in regular sugar is different from that of HFCS. In the latter, the glucose and fructose molecules are unbound and they apparently create something called reactive carbonyls when they hit the bloodstream. Carbonation( in sodas) increases the creation of these reactive carbonyls.

Reactive carbonyls, which have been linked to tissue damage and complications of diabetes, are elevated in the blood of people with diabetes. A single can of soda, however, has five times that concentration of reactive carbonyls. Old-fashioned table sugar, on the other hand, has no reactive carbonyls because its fructose and glucose molecules are “bound” and therefore stable, unlike the “unbound” molecules of HFCS.

Still, most of the current research so far has shown that all processed sugar is pretty bad for you and HFCS pretty much tops the list.

Now comes the really bad news –

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

Because of the complicated chemical-ridden process in which HFCS is made, there are chances of mercury contamination and the researchers in these two studies used off-the-shelf products from supermarkets as late as October 2008.

The moral of the story? Cut down on your sugar consumption in general and stay away from nasty stuff like HFCS totally. Start reading labels. Drink water, not soda or “fruit juice”.

H/T Nandini MInocha for the idea.

Bilingual book publisher MeeraMasi is kicking off 2009 with a new section on their website that invites their readers to contribute stories for children.

“Each of us shares our Indian culture with our children in varied ways. We want to give you an opportunity to take those threads and weave them into stories that can be shared with others. In our new Story Teller section, we invite you (and your kids) to share your unique children’s stories with the global MeeraMasi community. So put fingertips to keyboard and submit your special stories to storyteller@meeramasi.com.”- say the founders.

Shameless plug alert!!!

Their first story Anku’s White Christmas, submitted by yours truly. Read it here.

For once, the cool and calm Barack Hussein Obama tripped over his words as he took the path of office as the 44th President of the United States. Congratulations Mr. President, you take office at a momentous time, an enormous burden on your slim shoulders.

The hopes and dreams of not just 300 million Americans but the entire world, beseiged by terrorism and beset by economic failure, rest on this humble but confident man, who genuinely believes he can bring us all together.

Such are the expectations from the new President that, on the eve of his inauguration, a poem from Yuddha Kanda, the Ramayana’s book of war, describing Rama’s reign seems appropriate-

And tis told by ancient sages, during Rama’s happy reign,
Death untimely, dire diseases came not to his subject men,

Widows wept not in their sorrow for their lords untimely lost,
Mothers wailed not in their anguish for their babes by YAMA crost,

Robbers, cheats, and gay deceivers tempted not with lying word,
Neighbour loved his righteous neighbour and the people loved their lord!

Trees their ample produce yielded as returning seasons went,
And the earth in grateful gladness never failing harvest lent,

Rains descended in their season, never came the blighting gale,
Rich in crop and rich in pasture was each soft and smiling vale,

Loom and anvil gave their produce and the tilled and fertile soil,
And the nation lived rejoicing in their old ancestral.

Good luck Mr. President, we are with you.

H/T Balloon Juice.

Leon Logothetis, whose show “The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody” airs on Fox Reality Channel, is a Briton who travels around the world on a really, really low budget( in the US it is $5 a day). He describes his adventures roaming the US hinterland in an interview with The New York Times. An excerpt:

What’s the most stunning act of generosity you’ve received?
I arrived in Indianapolis. I’d met an old lady on the train with her husband, and they put me up in a hotel. But that wasn’t the act. I woke up the next morning and I was chatting with this younger lady who had a 1-year-old son, and it turns out that she lived in Chicago. And she said to me — and this was within the first five minutes, I’m not exaggerating — she said to me, “If you can find your way to Chicago, I will give you the only set of keys to my house. You can stay in my house. I will be back the next day. Leave the keys in the flowerpot, and you can stay in my house. There’s chili in the fridge.” At the end, when she gave me her keys, she then said to me, “So, sorry, what’s your name?”

Do you find you get more help from tourists or from locals?
In America, it was primarily locals. And in England. In Europe, it was primarily tourists. American tourists, believe it or not, they saved me so many times, to the point that I would wake up in the morning and I’d be like, “O.K. guys, we’ve gotta find some Americans.”

Americans have been the butt of jokes for the last few years as our beloved leader steered the ship onto one set of rocks after another. It has been easy for outsiders to point fingers at the US for the foreign policy bungling, the financial irresponsibility, and the political extremism. At the same time any newcomer to this nation will have a story to share about an act of kindness from a complete stranger. My first neighbors in California were the sweetest family I have ever met. Their daughters still babysit my kids occasionally. I have left my wallet behind at many, many grocery stores and restaurants and have had it returned to me every single time.

We immigrants may consider ourselves superior because of our advanced interest in math and science, but if there’s one thing we would do well to emulate, it is this spirit of community and sharing that Americans have. That is what makes this the greatest country in the world.

Soon to be ex-President Bush is everywhere these days; I haven’t counted but I’m sure that he has given more exit interviews than he ever did during his 8-year reign of constitutional abuse. What you see is the beginning of a furious rewriting of history happening right in front of your eyes.

“Some days were happy, some not so happy, but all were joyous,” says this incredibly obtuse man. Joyous when 9 insane men destroyed the Twin Towers? Joyous when thousands were stranded in stinking Superdome benches during Katrina? Joyous when coffins of patriots came back from Iraq?

I remember a scene from a movie where a character says “Only people who are not self-aware can be successful.” There is no better  example than Dubya, who blithely rides off to the sunset feeling like he did the best he could, even though when pressed to name a single accomplishment of his 8 years in office, the best he could come up with was that he tried to privatize Social Security. This, after the collapse of the Dow has everyone offering a fervent prayer of thanks that that particularly bone-headed idea didn’t go through.

Even the Smithsonian has got into the act, stating that Bush’s tenure was “…marked by a series of catastrophic events” including “the attacks on September 11, 2001, that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Uh, no. If a highly reputed institution like the Smithsonian can start getting revisionist and connecting the 9/11 attacks to the invasion of Iraq, you can be sure conservative writers like Karl Rove and Bill Kristol, so kindly given op-ed space by the New York Times, will be busy creating an alternate reality for the history books. After all, as our Commander-in-Chief said last month, “I believe when people objectively analyze this administration, they’ll say, ‘Well, I see now what he was trying to do.’”

To be fair, the crises of the last 8 years were not entirely his fault. Like a puppy, W happily went about peeing on the carpet. As any pet owner can tell you, there is no point tapping its cute little nose with a newspaper long after the deed is done, it has just forgotten and moved on.The thing to do would have been to question the administration’s actions while they were happening. Congress dropped the ball, the Senate dropped the ball and we, the people, dropped the ball when we forgot that we were the masters and our representatives in Washington the puppets and not the other way around.

Suddenly I see a resurgence of political activism. After 8 years of profligacy, the Republicans have rediscovered their dislike of deficits,  and the media have discovered their cojones. The stimulus bill is being picked apart for any hidden earmarks and every political appointment is being hyper-scrutinized. I would be more reassured if the same set of people had wondered a dozen years ago what qualifications a horse breeder had to become head of FEMA or what the limits of executive powers were.( What would you bet that collective amnesia once again descends when a Republican President comes to power?)

For now, I’m just glad the long nightmare of the last few years is over. George Santayana famously said, ” “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. I solemnly vow to never forget.

And taking one last bow, heeeeere’s George:

So I got an email from a friend alerting me to yesterday’s episode of the ABC show “Private Practice”. Apparently, the autism community was up in arms about an incident on the show.

I’m embarrassed to say I record the show, so I decided to watch it.

What followed left my jaw on the floor. The story arc goes something like this – A mother with 3 children brings her kids to the clinic since the middle one has a high fever. Turns out the kid has measles. The mother has not had the child vaccinated because the older one exhibited autistic behavior and was diagnosed with autism shortly after receiving a set of vaccines.

That was not the shocker. What was horrifying was that the child with measles develops awful complications and dies( in speeded up television time) and the doctor, traumatised by the death of the child, forcibly vaccinates the remaining child. “I am going to sue you,” screams the distraught mother. Viewers with experience of autism must have felt the same sentiment towards the producers of “Private Practice” and ABC.

The show was wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. Let me share some personal history first. At the age of 4 my son, who had eczema since birth, was showing some signs of improvement. A visit to the doctor and multiple vaccines later, his eczema worsened severely to the point that at the age of 12, he still struggles with it on a daily basis. So you might say that I have some sympathy with parents of autistic children who see some correlation between vaccines and a sudden deterioration in their child. I have at least 2 close friends who swear the experience happened to them – overnight appearance of symptoms of autism and loss of verbal ability. Both have eschewed vaccines since then.

So let’s take the show’s many egregiously inappropriate elements and discuss them –

– The doctors sit in a round table and wonder if the mother should be reported to Family Services: Considering this show is set in Los Angeles, I wonder if the producers are aware that parents in California are allowed to take a religious exemption if they chose not to vaccinate their child. I chose to do so for my second born, who is six and has happily avoided all childhood illnesses except chickenpox, which I was happy for her to have.( We’ll get to the wisdom of parental choice in this matter later..suffice to say that the law as it stands, allows it.)

– The child dies horribly from complications from measles: The death scene is particularly gory, a purely fear-mongering tactic. The actual statistics of death from measles? 1 death in the US in 2001. You might argue that this is because 92% of the population is vaccinated and you would be right. However, by the same logic if one particular parent chose to not vaccinate her child because of his/her unique circumstances and experience, she is hardly putting the other children at risk. After all, shouldn’t the other child’s vaccinations keep it safe?

– The doctor takes matters into his own hands and vaccinates the remaining child: This is cowboy medicine at its worst. First we have doctors refusing abortions because of their religious principles. Then we have parents advocating for the prolonged life-support of a comatose daughter( who can forget Terri Schaevo) and now we have a doctor clearly overriding the wishes of the parent. Forget about the ethical issues – this is not the forum for them – but whatever happened to rule of law? You don’t like the laws about a certain subject? Work with your representatives to change it. You don’t get to play God.

What would be deeply satisfying to me and other outraged parents would be if the mother actually went ahead and sued the pants off the pediatrician in question and as a result the clinic had to declare bankruptcy and shut down. How’s that for a storyline Ms. Rhimes?

It is really unfortunate that a popular show should promote such behavior. As it is parents are uncomfortable making such a difficult choice for their child. I remember when the pediatrician came to see me at the hospital following the birth of my daughter 6 years ago. I was in a Motrin induced haze, but I still had the clarity to hold off on my baby’s shots( how smart is it to inoculate newborns anyway?) till I could think about it and make an informed decision. Just a hint that I might not completely vaccinate my child and I was subjected to a 15-minute harangue from the doctor which made me feel small and stupid. Now parents are going to be more cowed than ever, thanks to this irresponsible show.

I grew up in India with some basic vaccinations like DPT, polio and smallpox and survived. This may have been partly due to luck and partly due to the fact that my parents were good caregivers and would have immediately taken me to the doctor if I was sick. Yes kids do die in developing countries from childhood illnesses but this is as much due to the lack of immediate care as it is the disease itself.  And I come back to the rule of law – if the law gives me the right to choose to not vaccinate my child – back off!

On my part I have taken off the show from my list to watch. If you want to call ABC and protest here’s some general information

ABC, Inc.
500 S. Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521-4551
(818) 460-747

To find your local station, go here and click on the map. Another contact page can be found here.

This is the advice I have offered ( as one parent to another) to friends who have wondered what to do about their child’s vaccinations  –

– Educate yourself about each vaccine, the risk of the disease it is supposed to prevent, how well it protects against it and its side effects.

-If your family has a history of chronic conditions that are related to the immune system, proceed cautiously.

-The newer the vaccine, the warier you should be.

-If you want your child’s vaccinations to be full and up-to-date, space the vaccinations so that your child does not get more than one vaccine at a time. Beware of combination vaccines. It is in your doctor’s interest to get it all out of the way at once – stand your ground and insist on separating the vaccines and returning to the clinic month after month. The downside is that your child will come to associate going to the doctor with getting a shot and that is not pleasant. The upside is that you will avoid overloading the immune system. Worth it, don’t you think?

Reuters reports that a Bollywood movie called “The President is coming” is due to hit theaters Friday. The movie is set in 2006, when soon to be ex-President Bush made a visit to India.

Adapted from a play of the same name, “The President is coming” tells the fictional tale of six Indians vying for a chance to shake hands with the visiting head of state. According to Reuters, “shot in a mock documentary style, the English-language film depicts a series of farcical tests conducted in a room at the U.S. consulate to single out a young Indian worthy enough to meet Bush.”

From ThinkProgress, an exchange from the movie –
ACTOR: “You’re crazy, man. A narrow-minded chauvinist who hates people from different cultural backgrounds.”

ACTOR 2: “But that is just like Bush!”

The movie is directed by Kunaal Roy Kapur and stars Konkona Sen Sharma, among others. Here is the trailer –

Per Huffington Post, a possibility that Dr. Sanjay Gupta may be being considered for the post of the Surgeon General in the Obama administration.

At first glance, Indian-American or not, this is not particularly exciting news. Dr.Gupta has a prominent and popular media presence on CNN, but he is hardly path-breaking in his pronouncements. I have heard him discuss subjects like autism, obesity and stress and his opinions are safely within the mainstream, nothing different from a visit to my regular doctor. I have never heard him voice a dissenting point of view to prevailing wisdom and given the astuteness of the President-elect’s recent cabinet picks, I have to confess I found this a little disappointing.(Dr. Gupta’s spat with activist filmmaker Michael Moore is well known. Check out this 17 minute clip from Larry King Live. It betrays a real lack of understanding on Dr. Gupta’s part on the state of health care in the US today.)

But I then looked up what exactly a Surgeon General of the United States is expected to do. At most he is the public face of the policies of the administration, not necessarily a policy creator or driver. He reports to the Assistant Secretary of Health , who in turn is the principal adviser to the Secretary for Health and Human Services( who would be Tom Daschle, once confirmed under the Obama administration.) Previous Surgeon Generals have left their mark by working on important but non-crucial subjects like passive smoking and childhood obesity, not on health care policy.

Should the appointment happen, we would have a highly visible Indian American who would be responsible for being the front man for health initiatives. My expectation is that there will a renewed emphasis on personal responsibility for health care, like eating right, getting off the couch and limiting video games for children. And it will be delivered in the most pleasant manner possible. Hmmm…..I suppose I could live with that.

PBS and the BBC team up for a landmark series on India. The six-part series, in which historian Michael Wood explores the history and achievements of the world’s oldest civilization while journeying across the Indian subcontinent, begins with the migration of people out of Africa; visits ancient Indian cities.

Broadcast Schedules can be found here. Comcast viewers can see it on Channel 9(KQED)starting today, January 5th,2008 .

Record it and see it with your kids.