毒品一樣的糖果

Sugar Season. It’s Everywhere, and Addictive.

毒品一樣的糖果

YOUR co-worker brought in brownies, your daughter made cookies for a holiday party and candy is arriving from far-flung relatives. Sugar is everywhere. It is celebration, it is festivity, it is love.

同事帶來(lái)了布朗尼，女兒為假期的聚會(huì)做了曲奇餅，八桿子打不著的親戚也送來(lái)了糖果。到處都是糖。糖代表了慶祝，代表了節(jié)日，也代表了愛(ài)。

It’s also dangerous. In a recent study, we showed that sugar, perhaps more than salt, contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease. Evidence is growing, too, that eating too much sugar can lead to fatty liver disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and kidney disease.

但糖也是一種危險(xiǎn)。在最近的一項(xiàng)研究中，我們證明了糖分對(duì)心血管疾病的發(fā)展有推動(dòng)作用，而且其影響或許比鹽分更大。也有越來(lái)越多的證據(jù)表明，吃太多糖會(huì)引發(fā)脂肪肝、高血壓、二型糖尿病、肥胖癥和腎病。

Yet people can’t resist. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Sugar is addictive. And we don’t mean addictive in that way that people talk about delicious foods. We mean addictive, literally, in the same way as drugs. And the food industry is doing everything it can to keep us hooked.

然而人們無(wú)法抗拒。原因也相當(dāng)簡(jiǎn)單，糖分是有成癮性的。我們所說(shuō)的“成癮”并不是人們談?wù)撁牢稌r(shí)的那種意思，而是實(shí)實(shí)在在的，像毒品一樣的成癮性。而且食品工業(yè)正在竭盡所能，試圖把我們勾住。

Up until just a few hundred years ago, concentrated sugars were essentially absent from the human diet — besides, perhaps, the fortuitous find of small quantities of wild honey. Sugar would have been a rare source of energy in the environment, and strong cravings for it would have benefited human survival. Sugar cravings would have prompted searches for sweet foods, the kind that help us layer on fat and store energy for times of scarcity.

直到幾百年前，濃縮糖實(shí)際上在人類(lèi)的飲食中還不存在，除非偶然間找到少量野生蜂蜜。糖分在環(huán)境中是一種罕見(jiàn)的能量來(lái)源，對(duì)其產(chǎn)生強(qiáng)烈的渴望，對(duì)于人類(lèi)的生存是有利的。對(duì)糖分的渴求會(huì)促使我們尋找甜味的食物，也就是幫助我們堆積脂肪、積蓄能量，以備匱乏時(shí)期的那種食物。

Today added sugar is everywhere, used in approximately 75 percent of packaged foods purchased in the United States. The average American consumes anywhere from a quarter to a half pound of sugar a day. If you consider that the added sugar in a single can of soda might be more than most people would have consumed in an entire year, just a few hundred years ago, you get a sense of how dramatically our environment has changed. The sweet craving that once offered a survival advantage now works against us.

今天，添加的糖分隨處可見(jiàn)，在美國(guó)買(mǎi)到的包裝食品中，有大約75%含有添加糖分。普通的美國(guó)人平均每天消耗的糖分在四分之一磅到半磅(約合110克至220克)之間。如果我們思考一下，今天一聽(tīng)碳酸飲料里含有的添加糖分，可能高于幾百年前多數(shù)人一整年消耗的糖分，就能明白我們周?chē)沫h(huán)境發(fā)生了多么巨大的改變。渴求糖分曾經(jīng)是我們的生存優(yōu)勢(shì)，但現(xiàn)在卻對(duì)我們不利。

Whereas natural sugar sources like whole fruits and vegetables are generally not very concentrated because the sweetness is buffered by water, fiber and other constituents, modern industrial sugar sources are unnaturally potent and quickly provide a big hit. Natural whole foods like beets are stripped of their water, fiber, vitamins, minerals and all other beneficial components to produce purified sweetness. All that’s left are pure, white, sugary crystals.

天然的糖分來(lái)源，如完整的水果和蔬菜，糖分濃度通常并不高，因?yàn)槠渲械奶鹞队兴?、纖維和其他成分來(lái)緩沖。然而現(xiàn)代工業(yè)生產(chǎn)的糖分來(lái)源，卻濃重得不自然，很快就能提供巨大的沖擊。就說(shuō)甜菜這樣的天然完整食品，其水分、纖維、維生素、礦物質(zhì)，乃至其他所有有益成分都被剝離，用來(lái)生產(chǎn)純化的糖。剩下的就只有白色的、純粹的糖晶體。

A comparison to drugs would not be misplaced here. Similar refinement processes transform other plants like poppies and coca into heroin and cocaine. Refined sugars also affect people’s bodies and brains.

在這里與毒品相提并論并不過(guò)分。將其他植物，如罌粟和古柯轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楹Ｂ逡蚝涂煽ㄒ虻奶峒冞^(guò)程，與上述程序是相似的。純化的糖分也會(huì)影響人的身體和大腦。

Substance use disorders, defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, exist when at least two to three symptoms from a list of 11 are present. In animal models, sugar produces at least three symptoms consistent with substance abuse and dependence: cravings, tolerance and withdrawal. Other druglike properties of sugar include (but are not limited to) cross-sensitization, cross-tolerance, cross-dependence, reward, opioid effects and other neurochemical changes in the brain. In animal studies, animals experience sugar like a drug and can become sugar-addicted. One study has shown that if given the choice, rats will choose sugar over cocaine in lab settings because the reward is greater; the “high” is more pleasurable.

按照《精神障礙診斷與統(tǒng)計(jì)手冊(cè)》(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)的定義，列明的11項(xiàng)癥狀中存在至少兩到三種，就構(gòu)成了物質(zhì)使用障礙。在動(dòng)物模型中，糖分至少產(chǎn)生了三種與物質(zhì)濫用和依賴(lài)相吻合的癥狀：渴求感、耐受性、戒斷癥狀。糖分其他與毒品相似的特性還包括(但不限于)交叉敏化、交叉耐受性、交叉依賴(lài)性、獎(jiǎng)賞效應(yīng)、阿片效應(yīng)，以及大腦中的其他神經(jīng)化學(xué)變化。在動(dòng)物實(shí)驗(yàn)中，動(dòng)物對(duì)糖的感受就像一種毒品，而且可能會(huì)對(duì)糖產(chǎn)生依賴(lài)。一項(xiàng)研究顯示，如果提供了選擇，大鼠在實(shí)驗(yàn)室的環(huán)境中會(huì)選擇糖而不是可卡因，因?yàn)榍罢叩莫?jiǎng)賞效應(yīng)更強(qiáng)，即糖帶來(lái)的“興奮感”有著更高的愉悅度。

In humans, the situation may not be very different. Sugar stimulates brain pathways just as an opioid would, and sugar has been found to be habit-forming in people. Cravings induced by sugar are comparable to those induced by addictive drugs like cocaine and nicotine. And although other food components may also be pleasurable, sugar may be uniquely addictive in the food world. For instance, functional M.R.I. tests involving milkshakes demonstrate that it’s the sugar, not the fat, that people crave. Sugar is added to foods by an industry whose goal is to engineer products to be as irresistible and addictive as possible. How can we kick this habit? One route is to make foods and drinks with added sugar more expensive, through higher taxes. Another would be to remove sugar-sweetened beverages from places like schools and hospitals or to regulate sugar-added products just as we do alcohol and tobacco, for instance, by putting restrictions on advertising and by slapping on warning labels.

對(duì)于人類(lèi)，這些情況可能也并沒(méi)有多大不同。就像鴉片類(lèi)物質(zhì)一樣，糖分也會(huì)刺激大腦回路，而研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，糖分會(huì)影響人類(lèi)習(xí)慣的形成。糖分產(chǎn)生的渴求感與可卡因和尼古丁等成癮性物質(zhì)所產(chǎn)生的渴求感可以相提并論。而盡管其他的食品成分也會(huì)讓人愉悅，但是在食品當(dāng)中，糖分可能具有獨(dú)一無(wú)二的成癮性。例如，對(duì)飲用奶昔的人進(jìn)行的功能性磁共振成像(fMRI)檢測(cè)顯示，讓人產(chǎn)生渴望的是糖分，而不是脂肪。食品企業(yè)在食品中加入糖分，目的是調(diào)整產(chǎn)品成分，使其盡可能地難以抗拒、成癮性盡可能地強(qiáng)。我們?cè)趺床拍芙涑@個(gè)習(xí)慣?一種途徑是通過(guò)提高稅收，讓含有添加糖分的食品或飲料更昂貴。另一種途徑則是要求學(xué)校、醫(yī)院等地，停止提供加糖增甜飲品，或者像監(jiān)管煙酒一樣監(jiān)管添加糖分的產(chǎn)品，例如對(duì)廣告加以限制，或者加注警示提醒。

But as we suggested in two academic papers, one on salt and sugar in the journal Open Heart and the other on sugar and calories in Public Health Nutrition, focusing narrowly on added sugar could have unintended consequences. It could prompt the food industry to inject something equally or more harmful into processed foods, as an alternative.

但就像我們?cè)趦善撐?mdash;—一篇發(fā)表在《開(kāi)放心臟病學(xué)》(Open Heart)上，主題是鹽和糖，另一篇發(fā)表在《公共健康營(yíng)養(yǎng)學(xué)》(Public Health Nutrition)上，主題是糖分和卡路里——里提出的，只是狹隘地關(guān)注添加糖分可能會(huì)產(chǎn)生始料未及的后果。這樣做可能會(huì)促使企業(yè)在加工食品中，加入同樣有害，甚至危害更大的其他物質(zhì)作為替代。