你应该清楚你给孩子喂了多少人工甜味剂

你应该清楚你给孩子喂了多少人工甜味剂

Parents don't want to give their children foods with artificial sweeteners, surveys show.

调查显示，父母不想给孩子吃含有人造甜味剂的食物。

"Studies show most parents aren't aware that when they choose a low-calorie or low-sugar product, they are likely giving their children artificial or nonnutritive sweeteners," said pediatrician Dr. Carissa Baker-Smith.

儿科医生卡莉萨·贝克尔-史密斯说:“研究表明，大多数父母在选择低热量或低糖产品时，可能并没有意识到他们给孩子吃的是人工甜味剂或无营养甜味剂。”

She is the lead author on a new AAP policy statement released Monday calling attention to potential long-term safety risks of the use of nonnutritive sweeteners by children.

她是美国儿科学会(AAP)周一发布的一份新政策声明的主要作者，这份声明呼吁人们关注儿童使用无营养甜味剂的潜在长期安全风险。

"We looked at all the studies on these products and found there's little known about how these sweeteners might affect children's long-term health," Baker-Smith said.

贝克尔-史密斯说:“我们查看了所有关于这些产品的研究，发现人们对这些甜味剂如何影响儿童的长期健康知之甚少。”

Artificial sweeteners are high-intensity sweeteners many times sweeter than sugar. They add few or no calories to the foods they flavor and generally do not raise blood sugar levels.

人造甜味剂是高强度的甜味剂，比糖甜很多倍。它们在调味的食物中几乎不添加卡路里，通常也不会提高血糖水平。

Because they can be made from natural ingredients such as herbs (Stevia), fruits and berries (sugar alcohols like sorbitol often used in chewing gum) as well as synthesized from chemicals (saccharin, aspartame), they are now called "nonnutritive sweeteners."

因为它们可以由草药(甜叶菊)、水果和浆果(山梨醇等糖醇常用于口香糖)等天然成分制成，也可以由化学物质(糖精、阿斯巴甜)合成，所以它们现在被称为“无营养甜味剂”。

Whatever they are called, these sweeteners are "ubiquitous" in the products we consume, Baker-Smith said, and it can be hard to people to pick them out.

不管它们叫什么，这些甜味剂在我们消费的产品中“无处不在”，贝克尔-史密斯说，人们很难识别出来他们。

"First you have to read the ingredient list," she said, "and then you have to know the names of all the different sweeteners. Do people really recognize aspartame and acesulfame potassium?"

“首先你得看成分表，”她说，“然后你得知道所有不同甜味剂的名称。人们真的认识阿斯巴甜和阿西沙利钾吗?”

One 2014 study found parents were unable to identify these nonnutritive sweeteners in 77% of the products they were shown.

2014年的一项研究发现，父母们无法在展示给他们的产品中鉴别出这些无营养甜味剂占77%。

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved six high-intensity sweeteners as food additives: saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), sucralose, neotame and advantame.

美国食品和药品管理局批准了6种高强度甜味剂作为食品添加剂:糖精、阿斯巴甜、安赛蜜

How much are you eating?

你吃了多少?

Even if a parent recognizes the name of products, Baker-Smith said, it's then impossible to discover how much sweetener is in each serving.

贝克尔-史密斯说，即使父母识别这些产品的名字，也不可能发现每份食品中有多少甜味剂。

"The amount per serving is not listed on product labels, so you don't actually know how much sweetener a child is eating," she said.

“每份的量并没有列在产品标签上，所以你实际上并不知道一个孩子吃了多少甜味剂，”她说。

In their new guidance statement, the AAP is calling for manufacturers to do a better job of labeling these nonnutritive sweetners.

在他们的新指导声明中，美国儿科学会呼吁制造商尽可能地给这些无营养甜味剂贴标签。

"And the FDA should require manufactuers to list the amount of nonnutritive sweetener a product contains on labels," Baker-Smith said. "That would help families and researchers understand how just how much is actually being consumed."

贝克尔-史密斯说:“美国食品和药品管理局应该要求生产商在标签上列出产品中所含的非营养甜味剂的含量。”“这将帮助家庭和研究人员了解实际消费了多少甜味剂。”

The FDA has set limits on the amount of each sweetener that a 132-pound person should consume each day.

美国食品和药品管理局对132磅的人每天应该摄入的每种甜味剂的数量进行了限制。

While an adult of 132 lbs would have to eat a lot of non-caloric foods to reach that limit, young children do not weigh that much.

132磅的成年人需要吃大量的无热量的食物才能达到这个极限，而年幼的孩子则没有那么重。

Baker-Smith said, "If I start eating these at three and keep eating them until I'm 60, we don't know what the long-term exposure might be.

贝克尔-史密斯说，“如果我从三岁开始吃这些东西，一直吃到60岁，我们不知道长期这样会有什么后果。”

"Some would argue that we've been using these for decades now," she said, "but I still say that we just don't have the research to know."

“有些人可能会说，我们已经坚持了几十年了，”她说，“但我仍然认为，我们没有相关研究来证实这一点。”