McLEAN, Va. (AP) -- A popular sweetener used in everything from soda pop to baby food that some have blamed for America's increasingly bloated waistline is being unfairly maligned, say Virginia Tech researchers.

A report presented this week by the Alexandria-based Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at Virginia Tech says there is no reason to think high fructose corn syrup is worse than regular table sugar or any other sweetener as a contributor to obesity.

Use of high fructose corn syrup has increased dramatically in recent decades from 1.5 pounds per person in 1974 to 62.7 pounds in 2000. Manufacturers have turned to high fructose corn syrup instead of table sugar because of its shelf stability and relatively low cost.

Some epidemiological research has linked the increase in use of high fructose corn syrup to the increase in obesity in the United States.

A study published earlier this year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said the correlation between obesity rates and consumption of high fructose corn syrup is striking. The researchers speculated that the use of high fructose corn syrup makes soft drinks sweeter and consumers therefore crave them more and consume more.

But the Virginia Tech researchers say this hypothesis is flawed. First, they say that obesity rates worldwide are increasing, but the explosive growth of high fructose corn syrup is essentially an American phenomenon.

As for the relative sweetness of soda pop, the Virginia Tech researchers say the previous study mistakenly concludes that high fructose corn syrup is sweeter than sugar by evaluating the sugars that comprise high fructose corn syrup in a dry state. In liquid form, as it is presented to consumers, high fructose corn syrup has the same level of sweetness as regular table sugar, as evaluated by independent panels of sensory experts.

Other studies have questioned whether high fructose corn syrup is somehow metabolized differently by the body than sugar. But Maureen Storey, director of the Virginia Tech Center and one of the report's authors, said chemically high fructose corn syrup breaks down into the same simple sugars -- glucose and fructose -- as sugar.

"Your gut can't tell the difference between high fructose corn syrup and sucrose (sugar)," Storey said.

She acknowledged that no study has been done to conclusively show how the body metabolizes high fructose corn syrup, but said that biochemically "there is no reason I can think of they would be different."

Generally, Storey said, much of the research on high fructose corn syrup is off base because it does not specifically study high fructose corn syrup -- instead it looks at fructose or corn syrup, or some other component that does not exactly match up.

"Much of the research is not directly on point," she said.

The Virginia Tech researchers are not the only ones who say the focus on high fructose corn syrup is misplaced. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that has been highly critical of many aspects of the food industry, said there's no nutritional difference between typical table sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and blamed obesity instead on the massive quantities that are marketed and consumed by Americans.

Barry M. Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who worked one of the studies that produced a negative evaluation of high fructose corn syrup, defended the work. He said the caloric content of soda pop before and after the switch to high fructose corn syrup suggests that manufacturers must be using more sweetener per ounce to match the caloric content that had been present when sucrose was used.

"In our logic, the sweetness went up," he said.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.