There is a food that everyone eats, known as “the sweetest killer”, also known as “the poison more addictive than drugs”.Dr. Heather Moday, an American immunologist, said that during the new crown epidemic, it isimmune systemWorst food, it’s–sugar。
「sugar“What exactly is it?
Sugar is a food that everyone is very familiar with and is ubiquitous in life. We need sugar to maintain our health, and sugar can also bring relaxation and pleasure. But sugar is like a double-edged sword that can damage our health if left unchecked.
So, what exactly is sugar?
Sugar is an umbrella term for a large group of carbohydrates. Common sugars are:
● Glucose
Glucose is an energy-supplying substance that can be directly utilized by the human body and is used to supply energy to the brain. Excess glucose is stored in the body in the following forms:
① It is converted into liver glycogen and muscle glycogen for storage, and released into the blood when we are hungry to supply energy to the body;
② Reserve energy for the liver and muscles;
③ Converted to fat.
Glucose is relatively rare in nature. It is most commonly seen in grains in the form of starch.
● fructose
fructoseIt is a sugar that is abundantly present in fruits, honey, and sweet vegetables such as beets, potatoes, radishes, and onions. It is the “sweetest” of all sugars, 1.7 times sweeter than sucrose.
Fructose cannot be directly used for energy in the body, and excess fructose cannot be converted to glycogen storage like glucose, and will be converted to fat. Our fatty liver, obesity and other problems are mainly related to fructose. In addition, fructose reduces the body’s sensitivity to insulin and the ability to process fat, increasing the risk of diseases such as heart disease and fatty liver disease.
However, eating fruits in moderation is beneficial and harmless to the human body, because the sugars in fruits are not like free sugars such as granulated sugar, but are encapsulated inside the cells, and the cell walls of plants can prevent the sugars from being absorbed by the body too quickly.
What we need to be more vigilant about is not the natural sugars in fruits and vegetables, but “free sugars”, that is, “artificial sugars”, such as: white sugar, rock sugar, granulated sugar, honey, high fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, etc., which will make blood sugar rise rapidly.
● Sucrose
Sucrose is derived from sugar cane. Common sugar used in food industry, such as: white sugar, brown sugar, rock sugar, etc., are basically made of sugar cane.
● Lactose
Lactose is mainly derived from milk and is good for gut health. However, some people lack lactase in their intestines and cannot digest lactose. After drinking milk, they will develop lactose intolerance and cause diarrhea.
● Polysaccharides
Polysaccharides are sugar chains composed of many glucose molecules, and starch and cellulose in rice noodles are polysaccharides. Cellulose comes from grains, vegetables and fruits, and is very important to human health.
Sugar is a very contradictory thing. It is necessary to maintain people’s health, but we also need to rationally face some of the health problems it brings to people.
Is sugar more addictive than drugs?
As we mentioned just now, although fructose is high in sweetness, moderate intake of fruits and vegetables is beneficial to the human body. What we really need to be wary of are artificially added free sugars, such as sweet chocolate, whipped cream cakes and other sweets that many people love to eat.
We all know that children love candy, because children need a lot of energy when they grow up. In addition to this, sugar can also activate the pleasure centers in our brains and trigger the release of dopamine, which brings a sense of pleasure.
However, this can lead to addiction. There is even a saying that sugar is more addictive than drugs.
In 2007, a study by the University of Bordeaux in France conducted a reward experiment with rats: place two levers in front of the rats for them to choose freely: choosing lever C will get the “reward” of cocaine (an addictive drug); choosing S You get water with saccharin, which has no calories, just sweetness.
It is generally assumed that rats choose cocaine, which is highly addictive.
But the results were very surprising: from the second day after the start of the experiment, the mice were more willing to choose the S (saccharin) lever; 15 days later, 94% of the mice were more willing to choose the lever that could get saccharin.
To find out if the chemicals in saccharin had an attractive effect, or if it was just a sweet taste, scientists did another study with sucrose and found that mice had the same preference for saccharin and sucrose.
The researchers therefore concluded that the sweet taste of sugar can be addictive.
Scientists also found that sugar has almost the same effect on the brain as drugs, and the addictiveness of sugar is several times higher than that of cocaine. Eating sugar causes the brain to produce dopamine, causing pleasure and making people “sugar addiction”.
Compared with other addictive substances, “sugar addiction” affects our body in a more subtle way, like a “chronic poison”.
Dr. Heather Moday, an American immunologist, pointed out that during the new crown epidemic, there is one food that is the worst for the immune system, and that is sugar.
“The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” conducted a research experiment: After a group of subjects fasted overnight, they took 100 grams of free sugar orally on an empty stomach. As a comparison, another group of subjects took the same amount of starch on an empty stomach. The experiment found that the phagocytic ability of phagocytes of the immune system was greatly reduced for people who took free sugar orally; the maximum reduction occurred between 1 and 2 hours after ingesting sugar, which was 50% lower than that in the fasting state; even after 5 hours , immunity is still affected.
In contrast, the control group that ingested starch did not show a decline in immunity. Therefore, eating a moderate amount of rice, noodles, and steamed bread will not harm the immune system.
We just saw that after ingesting free sugars, the “combat power” of phagocytes dropped by nearly half. However, the negative impact of excessive intake of sugar on the immune system is not limited to inhibiting the function of phagocytes. A high-sugar environment can also cause chronic inflammation and inhibit all aspects of the immune system, including: white blood cells, natural killer cells, macrophages , T cells, etc., resulting in a decrease in the comprehensive ability of the human body to recognize and kill germs. A study found that 50% of hospitalized new crown patients in the United States have diabetes or obesity.
Therefore, under the new crown epidemic, we need to improve the natural immunity of the human body, and we must pay more attention to “sugar reduction」。
Eating too much sugar is known to have several common health effects, such as tooth decay, weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and more.In addition, the increase in blood sugar caused by eating sugar will make the body cells soak in the high sugar environment, producing a kind ofGlycosylation end products (advanced glycation end products，AGEs)。
The normal metabolism of the human body will produce AGE, and the ability of people to clear AGE will decrease with age. Studies have shown that AGEs can increase oxidative stress and inflammatory responses, accelerate human aging, and lead to many chronic degenerative diseases, such as: diabetes, arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis, kidney disease, promoting aging, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, Skin degeneration.
As we all know, dishes such as braised pork and barbecued meat have a special aroma, and the baked cake also has a layer of attractive flavor – this comes from protein glycosylation (Maillard reaction, Maillard reaction). After dry heat (baking, frying, frying) cooking, AGEs will increase 10 to 100 times.
How to avoid the generation of AGE? Scientific research found:
1. Use moist heat for cooking;
2. Shorter cooking time;
3. Lower temperature;
4. Add acidic ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar.
These practices can significantly reduce AGEs, so it makes sense that a lemon is often placed next to a steak in a western restaurant.
Also, red meats like beef have more AGEs than white meats. Therefore, for our own health, we try to eat less roasted and fried beef and use stewed and boiled methods to cook, and the content of AGE will be much less.
4 methodssugar reduction Grasp 1 key – “degree”
Although you can’t eat too much sugar, how much sugar should you control every day?
In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a new version of the dietary guidelines, recommending that the amount of free sugar should be reduced to less than 5% of the total daily calorie intake, and no more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) to avoid obesity, tooth decay, diabetes, cardiovascular disease Diseases and even “diseases of civilization” such as cancer.
If you want to improve your health and immunity, people who are accustomed to eating sweets can consider reducing sugar:
1. We need to learn to read nutrition labels on food packaging.
2. Check the sugar content of each item in the pantry.
3. Eat less overly processed foods
4. Eat more carbohydrates in the form of “bad” plain vegetables, beans, fruits, nuts or seeds.
However, it is not to completely eliminate all sugar, but to grasp the word “degree”.
The Chinese people all know the “Golden Mean”, in fact, the way of being a human being and the way of health are interlinked.
In fact, many times we eat sugar, not because the body needs to eat “rationally”, but to satisfy an emotional desire. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers have also found that excessive sugar intake increases dopamine levels in a similar way to drugs such as cocaine. Therefore, getting rid of sugar addiction is similar to getting rid of drug addiction. You need to restrain yourself a little bit and eat a little less each time, and you will improve a little bit, and the desire to love to eat will be weaker; .
In addition, scientists have also done an experiment: let one group of mice eat very full, and the other group eat seven minutes full. Guess which group of mice will live longer? It turned out that the mice that ate 70% full lived 20% longer than those who ate very well.
Miaoyu in “A Dream of Red Mansions” once invited Baoyu, Daiyu, Baochai and others to drink tea. Miaoyu’s comments on drinking tea are quite thought-provoking: one cup is a drink, two cups are to quench thirst, and three cups are to drink cattle .
If a thing tastes good and people like it, we don’t have to eat a lot, we keep it all for ourselves, and taste it with a taste.
No matter what we eat, if we can taste it with the mentality of tasting tea, we may not have too many desires.
Modern people pay attention to living a quality life. To be a tasteful person, we might as well start with eating: taste the taste, and properly control excessive desires, which will also bring many benefits to health. ◇
Living in a chaotic world, with a healthy mind, just seeHealth 1+1！
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Responsible editor: Li Qingfeng