If you want to ask contemporary people how to drink "happy fat house water" healthier, everyone may answer you: "Drink sugar-free!" ”
Zero sugar low calorie as a healthy health weight loss method that has emerged in recent years, has quickly become popular. The main "sugar-free" drink exploded overnight, and many Internet red milk teas have used low-calorie sugar...
However, some small partners are a little hesitant: "Why is the sugar-free version more expensive than the sugar-free version?" Obviously sugar-free why does it taste sweet? Can it help me lose weight? ”
Let's start at the beginning.
What is a sweetener?
Sweeteners, broadly including caloric sweeteners (such as honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, etc.) and low or zero calorie sweeteners, also known as non-nutritive sweeteners or sugar substitutes.
The generally used sweetener refers to the low or zero calorie category. They are some natural or artificial compounds, the common feature is that it is hundreds of times to tens of thousands of times sweeter than the commonly used sugars, but the calories are extremely low or almost no, so instead of traditional sugars are added to food or beverages, as long as a very small dose can achieve the same sweetness, so that the total calorie intake can be reduced without affecting the taste of food, to help people who want to lose weight or diabetics control the intake of total sugar.
Sugar substitutes have been on the market for more than 100 years since the introduction of the first "saccharin" in 1878, and there are a wide variety of sugar substitutes on the market today, and these sweeteners are widely used in beverages, desserts, candy, dairy products, chewing gum and other foods.
Most food packaging that uses low or zero-calorie sweeteners will be marked with the words "low sugar", "sugar-free" and "low calorie".
Nutritional facts of a sugar-free beverage
You can look for the following names on the food packaging:
· saccharin
· aspartame
· Acesulfame potassium
· Sucralose
· Steviol glycosides
· Sugar alcohols: sorbitol, xylitol, maltitol, etc
· New sweet
· Isomaltoneitol
Are sweeteners safe?
In the 1970s, studies reported that saccharin was associated with bladder cancer in experimental rats, causing widespread concern, but subsequent studies found that this conclusion only applies to rats, and no evidence has been found that saccharin is related to human bladder cancer, so the National Cancer Institute of the United States states that "there is no evidence that sweeteners or sugar substitutes cause cancer in humans."
In addition to cancer, a large number of studies have also proved that the use of sweeteners does not cause abnormal increases in blood sugar in diabetic patients, does not increase the formation of tooth decay, and has no other negative health effects on the general population, therefore, authoritative professional institutions and government organizations in Europe and the United States, including the American Diabetes Association, the Nutrition and Diet Association, the National Cancer Institute, the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Agency, have stated that "the appropriate amount of low or zero calorie sweeteners is safe to use."
Aspartame Image source: Baidu Encyclopedia
The so-called appropriate amount means that according to the average daily intake of weight people does not exceed 5 ~ 50mg / kg, the ADI value of different sweeteners is slightly different in this range. The only exception is in patients with phenylketonuria, who cannot metabolize aspartame normally and therefore avoid the use of this sweetener. In addition, for pregnant women and newborns, the American Pediatric Association considers the use of aspartame to be safe. There is evidence that small doses of acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and sugar alcohols are also safe for pregnant women. Studies on the safety of saccharin and steviol glycosides in pregnant women have not been enough, and there is no clear conclusion.
Can sweeteners really help with weight loss?
Retrospective studies have found that sweeteners are used more in obese people than in normal populations. According to a 2010 statistic, about 15 percent of people in the normal population used sweetener-containing beverages, compared with 41 percent of obese people with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 30 percent.
Is it that the more sweetenerS are used, the fatter they get? Or is it the opposite, because of being fat, so more sweetener drinks are used instead of sugary carbonated drinks to help control weight?
Retrospective studies have revealed this association between sweeteners and body weight, but do not account for any possible causal relationship. Therefore, prospective clinical control experiments on sweeteners are more telling. In 2009, dr. Hill's article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition pointed out that replacing traditional cola with sugar-free cola can reduce the intake of 150 kcal calories per day (about 150 kcal of 360 ml of traditional cola), so that small changes can help patients prevent continued weight gain.
Promotion of a "sugar-free" beverage product
In 2012, a single-blind randomized clinical trial at North Carolina State University that replaced carbonated beverages in their diets with water or sugar-free beverages in 318 overweight or obese adults was followed up for 6 months and found that the use of sugar-free beverages was twice as likely as the control group to achieve a 5% weight loss target, and the weight loss was more pronounced than the water-using experimental group.
In 2014, another randomized clinical trial published in the journal Obesity yielded similar results: 303 obese people participated in a 12-week weight loss program, and in addition to counseling and guidance on changing diets and exercises, they were randomly divided into two groups, one with water as a drink and one with a non-nutritive sweetener. After 12 weeks, the average weight loss of the water drink group was 4.09 kg, while the average weight loss of the sweetener beverage group was 5.95 kg; moreover, during this 12-week weight loss process, the participants' subjective hunger sweetener group was significantly smaller than the water drink group.
In 2014, an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, summarizing 15 clinical randomized controlled trials, noted that in all of these experiments, the use of sweeteners statistically significantly improved in the following indicators: body weight, body mass index (BMI), body fat content, and waist circumference. Studies of children and adolescents have come to similar conclusions. Another study looked at people who were once obese and now have a normal weight after losing weight, and found that the use of sweeteners also helped them maintain a normal weight.
Of course, sweeteners cannot be eaten as rice, and cannot be pointed to relying on it alone to lose weight. On the basis of a reasonable and healthy diet, the appropriate use of sweeteners can help reduce the sugar in the diet, thereby reducing the intake of total calories, which helps to weight control and weight loss.
Do sweeteners exacerbate the thirst for sugar?
In recent years, some studies have begun to question the role of sweeteners, proposing that the neural responses and regulations induced by sweeteners will increase cravings and hunger for sweets, which may eventually lead to excessive intake of food and obesity. This hypothesis is based primarily on the results of the epidemiological findings of taste physiology, metabolic endocrinology, human behavior, and the association of sweeteners with body weight described above.
A 2015 review, summarizing and evaluating relevant studies, found no convincing evidence that sugar substitutes cause weight gain; rather, most direct interventional human experiments, both in adults and children, showed that the long-term use of sugar substitutes instead of dietary sugar actually reduced caloric intake and reduced weight.
Nor can this assumption be said to be unreasonable. In the subcortical and hypothalamic regions of the human brain, there are many neurons that receive signals from the body's fat tissue, gastrointestinal hormones, and other endocrine hormones, regulating our hunger and eating behavior.
Schematic diagram of the hypothalamus region Source: Baidu Encyclopedia
One of the areas is called the "Pleasure Center" or "Reward Center", and when we feel physical, mental or emotional stress and want to relax, we stimulate this area through different means, such as smoking, drinking, and eating sweets, so as to achieve relaxation and stress relief. People with depression may also be associated with the imbalance of regulation in this area. Therefore, people's desire for sweets, just like behaviors such as smoking, has a certain degree of addiction.
The use of sweeteners, although reducing the intake of direct sugar, may still act on this area of the brain, stimulating it and maintaining the body's thirst for "sugar". Similarly, the withdrawal of sweets, just like smoking and alcohol, may produce "withdrawal symptoms" such as obvious physical discomfort, and may even aggravate the body's desire for these things. The use of relatively harmless alternatives to the body to gradually reduce the dose until withdrawal is a more reasonable and feasible way. We can use sweeteners to replace real sugar, and then gradually reduce the use of sweeteners until the body is no longer "sugar-hungry."
So, if you like sweets and carbonated drinks and want to lose weight, then feel free to use "low-sugar" drinks and foods to help you reduce your sugar intake!
Next, try to slowly reduce these "low-sugar" drinks and focus more on healthy eating and fresh fruits and vegetables. After all, water, not a sweetener drink, is the healthiest drink ever for human beings.
The reproduced content represents the views of the author only
Does not represent the position of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Source: Origin Reading
EDIT: Hidden Idiot