Why You Should Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) dominates the American food supply. It's in soda, bread, condiments, yogurt, salad dressings, and nearly every packaged food on grocery store shelves.

The food industry loves it because it's cheap, shelf-stable, and sweeter than sugar. Your body hates it because it metabolizes differently than any sugar humans evolved eating.

Here's what HFCS actually is, how it differs from natural sugars, and why it's wrecking metabolic health at a population level.

What Is High-Fructose Corn Syrup?

HFCS is sugar extracted and concentrated from corn. In the early 1970s, food scientists developed industrial processes to break down cornstarch into glucose, then convert some of that glucose into fructose.

The result: a syrup that's 55% fructose and 45% glucose (HFCS-55, used in soft drinks) or 42% fructose and 58% glucose (HFCS-42, used in baked goods and processed foods).

The problem: Fructose and glucose exist a...

What is Adrenal Fatigue?

Adrenal fatigue is one of those terms that natural health practitioners have discussed for decades, but conventional medicine is only recently beginning to acknowledge.

You won't find "adrenal fatigue" in medical textbooks. It's not recognized as a disease. But the symptoms are real, the mechanism is understood, and millions of people are suffering from it right now.

Adrenal fatigue describes a state where your adrenal glands can't keep up with the demands placed on them. They're not pathologically diseased (Addison's disease). They're just exhausted—hypofunction rather than complete failure.

This matters because your adrenal glands regulate stress response, inflammation, blood sugar, immune function, energy production, and more. When they're depleted, everything breaks down.

Here's what adrenal fatigue actually is, how to recognize it, and what to do about it.

Understanding Your Adrenal Glands

Your adrenal glands sit on top of your kidneys. They're smal...

The Science Behind the Adrenal Gland

Your adrenal glands are walnut-sized organs that sit on top of your kidneys. They're small, but they control nearly every aspect of your stress response, energy production, immune function, and metabolic health.

When your adrenals function properly, you handle stress efficiently. When they're exhausted, everything breaks down—fatigue, inflammation, hormone imbalances, blood sugar crashes, immune dysfunction.

Understanding how your adrenal glands work helps you recognize when they're failing and what to do about it.

Here's the science behind adrenal function, the three major stress hormones, and why chronic stress wrecks your health.

The Three Major Adrenal Hormones

Your adrenal glands produce dozens of hormones, but three dominate your stress response:

1. Epinephrine (Adrenaline)

Epinephrine is your immediate "fight or flight" hormone.

Example: You're driving. The car in front of you slams on its brakes. You swerve into the next lane, barel...

You Might Be More Stressed Than You Think

Do any of these sound familiar?

Low energy and chronic fatigue. Dizziness when you stand up quickly. Asthma and allergies. Sunlight sensitivity (bright lights hurt your eyes, you constantly wear sunglasses). Muscle and joint pain. Anxiety, panic attacks, and blood sugar crashes. Insomnia. Low sex drive. Digestive issues. Heart palpitations. Thyroid problems.

These symptoms seem random and unconnected.

They're not.

There's one common link: stress and adrenal dysfunction.

Here's why stress affects every system in your body, how to recognize when you've exceeded your adaptive capacity, and what to do about it.

The Problem With How Medicine Views Stress

Most conventional doctors don't recognize the gray zone between "healthy" and "diseased."

In orthodox medicine, you're either pathologically sick (Addison's disease, Cushing's syndrome) or you're fine. There's no middle ground.

But pathology doesn't appear overnight. You don't wake up one ...