人造甜味剂的效果可能取决于它们的食用成分

人造甜味剂的效果可能取决于它们的食用成分

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.

人工甜味剂已经困扰营养学家一段时间了。有研究表明，它们的危害至少与它们所替代的增重糖一样严重，而另一些研究则显示正好相反。一篇新论文指出，这一切都取决于他们所处的环境。

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?

让我们关注主要问题——人工甜味剂对控制肥胖和糖尿病有益吗?纷至沓来的相互矛盾的信息对任何选择饮食的人都毫无帮助。如果有一半的研究是错误的，但我们不知道是哪一半，为什么人们要相信什么?

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.

根据耶鲁大学教授Dana Small的说法，没有人可能是错的，他们只是在测试不同的情况。斯莫尔让人们饮用含有三氯蔗糖、糖、或三氯蔗糖和麦芽糖糊精(一种没有甜味的碳水化合物)的水果味饮料。在细胞代谢方面，她发现那些服用了含有麦芽糖糊精的三氯蔗糖的人表现出了之前一些研究报告的负面影响。那些饮料中不含麦芽糖糊精的人没有受到影响。摄入蔗糖素/麦芽糊精的人体内的胰岛素敏感性和葡萄糖代谢会发生变化。功能磁共振成像扫描还揭示了他们大脑对甜味的反应变化。

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.

据信，这些变化可能会导致人们摄入高热量的食物，并干扰身体处理食物的能力。在一些动物研究中，甜味剂被发现会减弱它们品尝天然甜味食物的能力，导致它们为了获得相同水平的回报而额外摄入甜味剂。

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.

随后的试验表明，麦芽糊精本身不会产生这些影响;只有组合才是有问题的。以前的试验很少涉及麦芽糊精，但经常看到甜味剂与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."

斯莫尔在一份声明中说:“当我们开始这项研究时，驱使我们的问题是，反复食用人造甜味剂是否会降低甜味的预测能力。”“这很重要，因为感知甜味可能会失去调节代谢反应的能力，而这种反应是为身体代谢葡萄糖或碳水化合物做准备的。”

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.

和大多数营养试验一样，小样本的研究对象也很少——只有45人在10天内喝了7杯饮料。这将需要更大的研究和更多的测试，看看他们是否真的解释了之前的论文之间的差异。斯莫尔希望在未来研究其他甜味剂，但同时他说，这项工作“改变了我的饮食方式，以及我给我儿子吃的东西”。她认为，一杯健怡可乐本身是可以的，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.

与其说是有人搞砸了他们的结果，更别说是弄虚作假了，问题可能只是简单地从具体情况中归纳出了太多东西。