The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, and it is the season when mooncakes are sold. In recent years, with the improvement of public living standards, consumers are paying more and more attention to health, and all kinds of low-sugar and sugar-substitute foods have been welcomed by the market, and sugar-substitute mooncakes are also one of them.
Recently, a news about an Internet platform giving away mooncakes to users, but causing many people to have diarrhea, has aroused heated discussion on the Internet. It turned out that in the recipe of the mooncake, the sugar alcohol completely replaced the sucrose, and the excessive sugar alcohol content was very likely to cause diarrhea.
Feng Kelly, a doctoral student in epidemiology and health statistics at Peking Union Medical College, is a first-hand witness to the incident. On September 11, in an interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily, Feng Kelly said: "Although such food has no health problems, it will also cause adverse reactions in eaters. ”
Sugar alcohols are the most common nutritional sugar substitutes, but excessive consumption may cause diarrhea. Taking this incident as an example, the supplier replaced all the sugars that originally accounted for about 20% of the total weight of the mooncakes with sugar alcohols, which caused diarrhea in the eaters.
Feng Kelly explained that after the sugar alcohol enters the large intestine, because of poor absorption, it will remain in the intestinal lumen, and then on the one hand, it will ferment to produce gas, on the other hand, they will also increase the osmotic pressure in the intestine, so that the water in the intestinal cells is "sucked" out by the concentration gradient formed by the external osmotic pressure. This excess moisture can lead to thinning of the stool and the formation of diarrhea.
It is worth noting that the secretory diarrhea caused by infections such as bacteria and viruses that are common in daily life is not the same as the osmotic diarrhea caused by excessive sugar alcohol consumption. Symptoms of secretory diarrhea "tenesmus after dysphoria" are rare in osmotic diarrhea. To deal with osmotic diarrhea caused by sugar alcohols, as long as you fast and wait for the sugar alcohol to be completely excreted, the diarrhea symptoms will completely disappear, and the diarrhea caused by infection, fasting is useless. In addition to diarrhea, common intolerance symptoms caused by sugar alcohols include increased exhaustion and bloating.
Feng Kelly reminds that people with weak digestive function or intestinal diseases, such as patients with irritable bowel syndrome, need to eat as little sugar alcohol as possible.
Since it is not an essential nutrient, there is no "recommended intake" for sugar alcohols. There are great differences in the tolerance of sugar alcohols between individuals, and the national standard for food additives in China, GB 2760-2014, has not yet specified the relevant limits of sugar alcohols. From the latest research results, sorbitol, xylitol, maltitol, adults a one-time intake of more than ten grams may lead to diarrhea, and many drinks are using erythritol, generally intake of fifty or sixty grams will cause diarrhea.
How can I reduce the risk of diarrhea caused by sugar alcohols? Feng Kelly suggested that adding sugar alcohol to a complete meal and not eating foods that only contain sugar alcohols can improve absorption. Foods rich in FODMAPs (such as lactose-rich milk, sorbitol-rich prunes), and some foods rich in dietary fiber (such as oats, whole-grain bread with a high content of whole wheat flour, etc.) are not suitable for eating with sugar alcohols because they are difficult to digest. (Sun Mingyuan)
Source: Science and Technology Daily