Dozens of diets and even some doctors blame high-fructose corn syrup for America's obesity problem.
The research is conflicting and doctors say earlier studies show a link between high-fructose corn syrup and obesity, but later studies didn't support that.
Gene Baumgardner and his wife Jo farm 2,000 acres in Fayette County.
"It doesn't matter where the sugar comes from. Sugar is sugar, whether it is from corn, beet or cane," he said. "It has a lot of calories and a lot of calories that don't add anything else, don't add any nutrition of any kind. It is just empty calories and we all have to be careful about what we consume."
"All forms of caloric sweetener are going to cause you to be overweight if you eat too much of them," said Registered Dietition, Gina Casagrande.
Opinions are swaying like a pendullum on the Internet over high-fructose corn syrup and childhood obesity.
The Web site Science Daily, quoting a Princeton researcher said, "Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same."
On the same Web site was a link to www.sweetsurprise.com, which debunked some of the research from the Science Daily site.
"There are thousands of sites on the Internet, both pro and con, and the disinformation is not helping the issue," Casagrande said. "People think since we see it in most of the processed foods we buy, that high-fructose corn syrup must be what is causing us to become overweight. But in reality, it is really the same thing as sugar. There are very, very small differences."
According to Natalie Walston Lehner with the Ohio Corn Growers Association, Ohio has more than 3 million acres of corn and ranks as the nation's No. seven grower of corn.
With 25,000 grain farmers, nine percent of Ohio's corn production goes into high fructose corn syrup.
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