Diet: Sugar kills important gut bacteria | Knowledge & Environment | DW

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Chocolate, biscuits and cakes – tasty yes, healthy no. While it’s an unpopular reality that too much sugar is bad for our health, it’s no secret. Equally certain is the knowledge that our food leaves traces on its way through our digestive organs and influences the life in the intestines.

Now researchers from Columbia University in New York have Journal “Cell” a study published, which shows the influence sugar has on the intestinal microbiome of mice – and subsequently even on the immune system.

Good bacteria, bad bacteria

in the Bacteria live in the gut that are responsible for the increase in certain immune cells, so-called T helper cells – or more precisely: Th17 cells. The scientists observed that these immune cells regulate the absorption of fat in the mice’s intestines.

The researchers also found that a particularly sugary diet promotes the growth of certain bacteria, which in turn kill the immune-boosting microbiome. As a result, more fat entered the mice’s bodies through the intestinal mucosa. The animals not only became overweight, but also became ill.

“How sugar affects the human intestine is not yet well known,” says Christian Sina, director of the Institute for Nutritional Medicine at the University of Lübeck. There are many mouse studies, but the intestinal data in relation to humans is rather meager. However, one thing is clear: Too much sugar is definitely unhealthy.

Sugar: The dose makes the poison

Anyone who plunders the sweets shelf in a weak moment and spends the day on the couch with chocolate and lemonade will still not get sick immediately.

That’s why Christian Sina doesn’t want to completely demonize sugar. “The pinch of sugar with which you sweeten the coffee is not the problem,” says the nutritionist. It just too rarely stays with the pinch.

the World Health Organization (WHO) advisesto reduce sugar consumption to about 25 grams per day. That would still be six teaspoons. A survey by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) however, between 2017 and 2018 found that Americans consumed an average of 17 teaspoons of sugar per day.

Processed foods contain a lot of sugar

Cakes, cookies, and chocolate bars aren’t the only problem here – things that are notorious for being high in sugar. So-called “hidden sugars” found in processed foods cause the number of teaspoons of sugar to climb. Anyone who eats a lot of ready-to-eat food will quickly exceed their sugar limit.

This quickly results in a vicious circle: sugary food not only causes the blood sugar level to rise quickly, but also to fall again quickly. The hypo that follows fuels the appetite for sweets again.

In addition to obesity, cardiovascular diseases are the result of high blood sugar and blood lipid levels. This results in heart attacks, strokes and type 2 diabetes.

No good alternatives

According to Sina, honey, agave syrup or artificial sweeteners such as saccharin each have their advantages. “However, these alternatives to refined sugar are not unproblematic either.” Honey and agave syrup also contain a lot of glucose, i.e. sugar.

If the results of the mouse study are also confirmed in experiments with humans at some point, sugar may have to be re-evaluated by the WHO or nutritionists.

But the available data also speak a clear language: Less is more. “We have to get away from the feeling that sweets are good for us,” says nutritionist Sina. At least not on a daily basis and on a large scale.


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