The Determination of Usage Prevalance of Corn Syrups in Processed Food Products in Turkey and Health Risks

Abstract

Objective: Due to, studies related to corn syrups on health, the discussion of their usage in foods has become very populartoday. If the adverse health effects are demonstrated precisely, they may be banned in the future. The aim of this study wasdetermining prevalence and amounts of use of the these syrups in processed foods (chocolates, cakes, biscuits, confectionary,jams, etc.) produced in Turkey. It was also aimed to discuss the risks that they create for health.Method: In this study, the content of glucose, fructose and maltose (sugars of corn syrups) of 214 samples from 21 differentcompanies in Turkey were analyzed by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). The sucrose contents of these samples werealso determined by the same method.Results: At least one of the corn syrup sugars was determined in the 151 of the 214 samples. The highest amount ofmaltose (averaging 26.5%) was determined in candies. Honey flavored syrups (averaging glucose=16.7%, fructose=12.8%,maltose=26.2%) and jams (averaging glucose=15.4%, fructose=10.3%, maltose=16.9%) were found to contain significantquantities of corn syrups. At least one of the corn syrup sugars was determined in 33 of the 57 sweet biscuits and 51 of 53 cakes.Discussions: It has been found that corn syrups were in widespread usage in food products examined in our work. Moreover, itis noteworthy that the total sugar content of these products is very high. Due to metabolic and developmental toxic effects ofhigh amounts of sugar intake, carefully and limited consumption of these products would be appropriate.