人造甜味劑的效果可能取決于它們的食用成分

人造甜味劑的效果可能取決于它們的食用成分

Artificial sweeteners have puzzled nutritionists for some time now. There are studies that suggest they are at least as bad as the sugar they replace for weight gain, while others show the opposite. A new paper suggests it all depends on the context in which they're consumed.

人工甜味劑已經(jīng)困擾營養(yǎng)學家一段時間了。有研究表明，它們的危害至少與它們所替代的增重糖一樣嚴重，而另一些研究則顯示正好相反。一篇新論文指出，這一切都取決于他們所處的環(huán)境。

Let's focus on the primary question – are artificial sweeteners beneficial for obesity and diabetes control? The blizzard of conflicting information is deeply unhelpful to anyone choosing a diet. If half the studies are wrong but we don't know which half, why should anyone believe anything?

讓我們關注主要問題——人工甜味劑對控制肥胖和糖尿病有益嗎?紛至沓來的相互矛盾的信息對任何選擇飲食的人都毫無幫助。如果有一半的研究是錯誤的，但我們不知道是哪一半，為什么人們要相信什么?

According to Yale University's Professor Dana Small, no one may be wrong, they're just testing different circumstances. Small had people drink fruit-flavored beverages containing sucralose, sugar, or sucralose and maltodextrin (a carbohydrate without a sweet taste). In Cell Metabolism, she found that those who had the sucralose with maltodextrin showed the negative effects reported by some previous studies. Those whose drinks didn't include maltodextrin were unaffected. Sucralose/maltodextrin drinkers experienced alterations to the body's insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism. fMRI scans also revealed changes in their brains' responses to sweetness.

根據(jù)耶魯大學教授Dana Small的說法，沒有人可能是錯的，他們只是在測試不同的情況。斯莫爾讓人們飲用含有三氯蔗糖、糖、或三氯蔗糖和麥芽糖糊精(一種沒有甜味的碳水化合物)的水果味飲料。在細胞代謝方面，她發(fā)現(xiàn)那些服用了含有麥芽糖糊精的三氯蔗糖的人表現(xiàn)出了之前一些研究報告的負面影響。那些飲料中不含麥芽糖糊精的人沒有受到影響。攝入蔗糖素/麥芽糊精的人體內(nèi)的胰島素敏感性和葡萄糖代謝會發(fā)生變化。功能磁共振成像掃描還揭示了他們大腦對甜味的反應變化。

Stephen Luntz

It's believed these changes may cause people to consume high-calorie foods and interfere with the body's ability to process what it receives. In some animal studies, sweeteners were found to dull their ability to taste naturally sweet foods, leading to additional consumption to get the same level of reward.

據(jù)信，這些變化可能會導致人們攝入高熱量的食物，并干擾身體處理食物的能力。在一些動物研究中，甜味劑被發(fā)現(xiàn)會減弱它們品嘗天然甜味食物的能力，導致它們?yōu)榱双@得相同水平的回報而額外攝入甜味劑。

Subsequent tests showed that maltodextrin produced none of these effects on its own; it was only the combination that was problematic. Previous trials seldom involved maltodextrin, but often saw sweeteners consumed with other carbohydrate-rich foods.

隨后的試驗表明，麥芽糊精本身不會產(chǎn)生這些影響;只有組合才是有問題的。以前的試驗很少涉及麥芽糊精，但經(jīng)?？吹教鹞秳┡c其他富含碳水化合物的食物。

"When we set out to do this study, the question that was driving us was whether or not repeated consumption of an artificial sweetener would lead to a degrading of the predictive ability of sweet taste," Small said in a statement. "This would be important because sweet-taste perception might lose the ability to regulate metabolic responses that prepare the body for metabolizing glucose or carbohydrates in general."

斯莫爾在一份聲明中說:“當我們開始這項研究時，驅(qū)使我們的問題是，反復食用人造甜味劑是否會降低甜味的預測能力。”“這很重要，因為感知甜味可能會失去調(diào)節(jié)代謝反應的能力，而這種反應是為身體代謝葡萄糖或碳水化合物做準備的。”

Like most nutritional trials, the sample Small used was, well, small – just 45 people consuming seven drinks over a 10-day period. It will take larger studies with more tests to see if they really have explained the discrepancies between previous papers. Small hopes to investigate other sweeteners in the future, but in the meantime says this work “has changed the way that I eat, and what I feed my son.” A Diet Coke on its own is fine, she thinks, but not while eating a carb-rich meal.

和大多數(shù)營養(yǎng)試驗一樣，小樣本的研究對象也很少——只有45人在10天內(nèi)喝了7杯飲料。這將需要更大的研究和更多的測試，看看他們是否真的解釋了之前的論文之間的差異。斯莫爾希望在未來研究其他甜味劑，但同時他說，這項工作“改變了我的飲食方式，以及我給我兒子吃的東西”。她認為，一杯健怡可樂本身是可以的，但如果吃的是富含碳水化合物的食物，就不行了。

Rather than anyone having messed up their results, let alone falsified them, the problem may simply have been generalizing too much from specific situations.

與其說是有人搞砸了他們的結果，更別說是弄虛作假了，問題可能只是簡單地從具體情況中歸納出了太多東西。