Course:VANT149/2024/Capstone/Science/Team32

Abstract

Corn syrup is industrially manufactured through the isomerization of corn starch’s glucose into fructose. It is widely used in North American food production for its affordability and similarity to sucrose in taste. However, the widely use of corn syrup has raised the concerns on health due to the potential risks associated with excessive added sugar consumption, including the obesity and the type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is becoming more prevalent in recent society, and a significant number of families, particularly those with older members, are afflicted with this chronic illness. This study aims to investigate various corn syrup concentrations on the refractive index and compare to literature values of human blood refractive indices, which might be a relatively less investigated direction. An experiment was conducted in 2024 with 10 different concentration of corn syrup and 3 refractive indexes of fake blood measured by a refractometer. This measurement is utilized to quantify the sugar content of both corn syrup and simulated blood. These findings indicate that corn syrup does significantly elevate blood sugar levels compared to sucrose and glucose. It may have the similar effect as other sugars on human blood sugar levels. These insights emphasize the importance of monitoring sugar intake, particularly for the individuals with diabetes. Overall, this experiment can contribute to the exploration of factors influencing diabetes patients’ blood sugar levels and provide direction for future research.

Biographies

Shiqi Wang is the first-year science student in UBC Vantage. She is interested in neuroscience, food nutrition and Kinesiology. Her thesis addresses how bad sugar affects individuals and why diabetics have greater blood glucose than others.

Tianyang (Cynthia) Ma is a first-year undergraduate student from Vantage Science One at the University of British Columbia. She is mainly interested in the subjects of mathematics and statistics. In her spare time, she engages in hobbies like drawing and playing the Chinese Zither, which she uses to enrich her life.