評論
打印
We could try to reformulate all these foods so that they are made without sugar, but then they won't taste the same – unless, of course, we replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners. Our population randomised to consume as little sugar as possible is likely to lose weight, but we won't know if it happened because they ate less sugar, or fewer calories of all sorts. Indeed, virtually all dietary advice suffers from this same complication: whether you're trying to avoid gluten, trans fats, saturated fats or refined carbohydrates of all types, or just trying to cut calories – eat less and eat healthily – an end result of this advice is that you're often avoiding processed foods containing sugar and a host of other ingredients.
我們可以嘗試改變所有食物的配方，在制作時不加糖。但如果這樣，這些食物吃起來味道就不一樣了——當然，除非我們用人造甜味劑來代替糖。我們隨機抽取了一些人，結果表明吃糖少的人更容易瘦下來，但我們無法確定這是因為他們吃的糖少了，還是所有種類的卡路里都少了。事實上，幾乎所有的飲食建議都存在同樣的問題：無論是避免攝入麩質、反式脂肪、飽和脂肪或所有類型的精制碳水化合物，還是只是減少卡路里——吃得少吃得健康——這一建議的最終結果是，你避免攝入的是含糖和其他成分的加工食品。
Artificial sweeteners as a replacement for sugar muddy these waters even more. Much of the anxiety about these sweeteners was generated in the 60s and 70s by the research, partly funded by the sugar industry, that led to the banning of the artificial sweetener cyclamate as a possible carcinogen, and the suggestion that saccharin could cause cancer (at least in rats, at extraordinarily high doses). Though this particular anxiety has faded with time, it has been replaced by the suggestion that maybe these artificial sweeteners can cause metabolic syndrome, and thus obesity and diabetes.
糖的替代品“人工甜味劑”使得這一水域變得更加渾濁。對這些甜味劑的擔憂主要來自六七十年代的一項研究，該研究部分由制糖業資助，導致人工甜味劑糖精作為一種可能的致癌物被禁用，并暗示糖精可能致癌(至少在老鼠身上，在極高的劑量下)。雖然慢慢地這種焦慮已經消退，但取而代之的是，這些人造甜味劑可能會導致代謝綜合癥，從而導致肥胖和糖尿病。
This suggestion comes primarily from epidemiological studies that show an association between the use of artificial sweeteners and obesity and diabetes. But it is likely that people who are predisposed to gain weight and become diabetic are also the people who use artificial sweeteners instead of sugar.
這一發現主要來自流行病學研究，研究表明，人造甜味劑的使用與肥胖和糖尿病之間存在聯系。不過，那些容易發胖并患上糖尿病的人使用的可能是人造甜味劑而不是糖。
As Philip Handler, then head of the US National Academies of Sciences, suggested in 1975, what we want to know is whether using artificial sweeteners over a lifetime – or even a few years or decades – is better or worse for us than however much sugar we would have consumed instead. It's hard for me to imagine that sugar would have been the healthier choice. If the goal is to get off sugar, then replacing it with artificial sweeteners is one way to do it.
正如時任美國國家科學院院長的菲利普·漢德勒在1975年提出的那樣，我們想知道的是，與不管攝入多少糖相比，吃幾年、十幾年甚至一輩子的人造甜味劑對我們的健康是好是壞。我很難想象糖會是更健康的選擇。如果我們的目標是不吃糖，那么用人工甜味劑代替糖就是一種方法。
The research community can certainly do a much better job than it has in the past of testing all these questions. But we may have a very long wait before the public-health authorities fund such studies and give us the definitive answers we seek. What do we do until then?
在測試所有這些問題時，研究界肯定能做得比過去好得多。但在公共衛生當局資助此類研究并給予我們想要的明確的答案之前，我們可能還要等很長時間。在那之前我們應該怎么做？
Ultimately, the question of how much is too much becomes a personal decision, just as we all decide as adults what level of alcohol, caffeine or cigarettes we'll ingest. Enough evidence exists for us to consider sugar very likely to be a toxic substance, and to make an informed decision about how best to balance the likely risks with the benefits. To know what those benefits are, though, it helps to see how life feels without sugar. Former cigarette smokers (of which I am one) will tell you that it was impossible for them to grasp intellectually or emotionally what life would be like without cigarettes until they quit; that through weeks or months or even years, it was a constant struggle. Then, one day, they reached a point at which they couldn't imagine smoking a cigarette and couldn't imagine why they had ever smoked, let alone found it desirable.
最終，攝入多少才算過量的問題變成了個人決策，就像我們成年后都會決定自己攝入多少酒精、咖啡因或香煙一樣。足夠的證據表明，糖很可能是一種有毒物質，我們要在“如何最好地平衡可能的風險和好處”時做出明智的決定。不過，要想知道這些好處是什么，就得看看沒有糖的生活感覺如何。曾經吸煙的人(我就是其中之一)會告訴你，在他們戒煙之前，他們不可能從智力上或情感上理解沒有香煙的生活會是什么樣子，要經歷幾周、幾個月甚至幾年的持續戰斗。直到有一天，他們到達了一個臨界點，變得連吸煙想都不敢想，也無法理解過去自己為什么吸煙，更別談吸煙可不可取了。
A similar experience is likely to be true of sugar – but until we try to live without it, until we try to sustain that effort for more than days, or just a few weeks, we'll never know.
糖也是如此。但除非我們試著不吃糖，除非我們試著幾天或幾周不吃糖，否則我們永遠都不會知道。
