Few foods are as demonized as sugar, or at least as controversial, but it is a necessary food for the proper functioning of our body within the amounts recommended by the WHO: 5% of the daily caloric intake (25 grams) for a adult person with a normal body mass, although it can represent up to 10% of the total caloric intake. Sugar is the fuel for different organs, such as the muscles or the brain, it provides quick energy, since the sucrose of the sugar is transformed into glucose and fructose, it relieves discomfort and anxiety caused by hypoglycemia, it favors the assimilation of proteins , contributes to tissue growth and helps to fall asleep. Also, sugar is not an allergen.
Doctors Carmen Gómez Candela and Samara Palma Milla, from the Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Unit of the La Paz University Hospital and the Autonomous University of Madrid, respectively, have prepared a study whose objective is to review the most debated aspects of this food “to which It is attributed a multitude of evils that lie in wait for human beings, having even come to be considered a poison, an idea that enjoys followers even in the scientific and health sector”.
The report reveals that sugars, “in addition to the sweet taste, add a wide variety of favorable qualities to foods, such as their microbial action, taste, aroma and texture, as well as viscosity and consistency, which behave as generators of satiety. Sucrose is also used to modify the freezing and melting point or color foods naturally.”
This scientific study warns that substituting sugar for sweeteners represents insignificant caloric savings with respect to total daily calories, and can generate a feeling of “false tranquility” that favors the adoption of counterproductive behaviors, such as excessive consumption of these “low” products. in calories” and other foods with a high fat content. In this sense, the monograph underlines that “unlike what happens with fat intake, for which a strong correlation has been shown between excessive consumption and the increase in developing overweight or obesity; the relationship between the consumption of sugars included in foods, or added to them, is not so evident. Different cross-sectional studies have concluded that there is no association, or even that there is a negative association between the consumption of sugars and weight gain”.
ally of the brain
Sugar is important for the functioning of the body and particularly for the brain, since neurons, to maintain their integrity and functionality, require a constant supply of glucose from the bloodstream. As explained in the aforementioned scientific text, “sucrose, when it is included in a balanced way in the diet, has important properties, since it favors the rapid supply of glucose to the brain and muscle, being an essential carbohydrate for the development of cognitive functions”. The study goes on to say that consuming a sucrose-containing food or drink is associated with “improved mental alertness, memory, reaction time, attention, ability to solve math problems, as well as reduced the feeling of tiredness, both in healthy young and old individuals, as well as in Alzheimer’s patients”.
With athletes in mind, the experts Gómez Candela and Palma Milla explain that drinks containing sugar, minerals and water prevent dehydration and delay the onset of fatigue thanks to their direct supply of glucose to the muscle, which lengthens exercise time . “On the other hand, in the context of the diet, sugar is not consumed in isolation and contributes to making it more varied and appetizing, allowing the inclusion of foods that, perhaps otherwise, would not be consumed, indirectly contributing to the intake of other nutrients”.
Regarding evidence-based nutritional recommendations for the treatment and prevention of diabetes, both doctors explain that the total amount of carbohydrates consumed is more important than their type. “Today diabetics can consume sucrose (sugar) and foods that contain it as long as they are eaten in the context of a healthy diet and there is adequate medical control.”
The American Diabetes Association ensures that the consumption of sugar does not induce the appearance of diabetes; instead, the development of obesity, an unbalanced diet and lack of physical exercise have a lot to do with this pathology. As Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, said in the fifteenth century, “there is no guilty food.”
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