Dietand body weight: How soft
drinkseffect and other sugar-sweetened beverages?
If you for weeks every day drinking a small bottle of sugar-sweetened soda, the body weight may increase by a quarter kilograms on average. Take overweight people regularly large amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages, may contribute to reduce this amounts to a weight loss.
Beverages may already be sweet by nature , such as pure fruit juices or fruit juice drinks that contain sweet juices such as apple juice . However, the drinks may also have been nachgesüßt - about with sugar ( as sucrose ), honey or artificial ( synthetic ) agents such as saccharin or aspartame.
Sweeteners on the basis of juices or natural sugars are referred to by nutritionists as " sugar-sweetened soft drinks " , these are also high in calories . The synthetic sweeteners such as aspartame or saccharin provided the drinks , although with a sweet taste, but they do not have calories and no nutritional value.
Sweetened beverages and beverage preparations are heavily advertised . This includes all variations of lemonade or carbonated soft drinks such as cola or orange soda - but also sweetened fruit juices or flavored milks . Especially popular are these sweetened beverages among adolescents and young adults , especially males .
Quality of research on the influence of sugar-sweetened beverages
There are many theories about the influence of drinks generally to a balanced and healthy diet, and especially on the weight. There are many conflicting research results on this subject - and therefore expert recommendations. This has several reasons:
In the studies that examine the effect of sweet drinks , not carefully enough research separated between different sweetened beverages .
It is not recorded what happens to a comparable group of people who do not take sweetened drinks. That is, no one has used so-called controls. More on why this may lead to different or even misleading research results, you can read here .
In some studies as evidence of a possible weight loss due to fewer sugar-sweetened beverages , the body weight control only after a relatively short time (24 hours). However, this value indicates rather something about how much fluid a person has stored in the body and not whether this has actually lost weight.
The way to measure the effect of treatment or change in behavior , so it can affect the research results .
Some recommendations are based even on results of animal experiments and not on human studies .
Search for studies to review all theories of sweetened beverages and body weight
Scientists of the U.S. universities of Indiana and Alabama have searched for studies in which the effects of non-alcoholic sweetened beverages on body weight has been carefully checked. In this case, these were two important questions:
Does the type of beverage and the amount thereof an influence on the development of obesity?
Is that changing body weight, when people take less of these beverages to himself than before?
However, the researchers found surprisingly few good-quality studies on the relationship of beverages and weight gain.
Weight gain with regard to increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages
The researchers found a total of four relatively small studies in which participants were asked to take daily sugar-sweetened beverages. The development of the body weight of the participants compared to the weight of a control group. The participants in the control group took no sugar-sweetened beverages.
Since only four studies templates and no single study included more than 133 people , but only cautious conclusions were therefore possible :
The researchers found that sugar-sweetened beverage consumption caused an increase in weight .
The participants drank a daily bottle (600 ml) sugar-sweetened carbonated soft drink about three to twelve weeks , they took an average of about 0.2 kg (200 g) in weight .
In the individual studies, the calorie content of the drinks was very different. Fraud , the provision has been added calories 500 kcal per day , the weight gain could even be up to 0.8 kg ( 800 g).
This effect means that in the long run , however, can not be detected due to the relatively brief study period.
Of sugar-sweetened beverages not specifically examine effects - also were in the other studies - potentially harmful .
Type of sugar intake plays a role: solid or liquid
In a very small study was performed to investigate whether the composition of the sugar have an effect on caloric intake and body weight. Specifically, the participants took either a sweetened drink or a corresponding amount of sugary jelly beans to him. The result: When the sugar consumed in liquid form such as in soft drinks or sugar-sweetened beverages, the risk is increasing weight greater. In the study already the liquid amount of the sweetened beverage alone led to more kilogram of body weight.
The participants who consumed the other hand, the sugar in the form of jelly
beans, their diet seems to fit better to the additional caloric intake than if
they had taken a drink with the same amount of calories. These results are
interesting, but not reliable enough, because too few people participated in
this study.
Weight loss is not safe consumption with less sugar-sweetened beverages
The researchers found six studies involving more than 2,700 people , where a
possible weight loss was investigated by fewer sweetened beverages . These were
programs that people are persuaded to take less sweetened beverages. The result
: a certain weight loss could the scientists just in participants with
overweight certainly observe in normal weight people they saw no effect.
However, it was not covered , how much extra liquid, the people had been
drinking in the different groups . However, this has an influence on body weight
. Since the results were recorded as part of a general program to change
behavior and it is not a study to specifically investigate this question , one
can not answer this question safely .
Diet drinks and weight
Many people automatically assume that the diet version of lemonade can not
lead to weight gain because it contains no calories. This assumption has been
scientifically but never fully proved . Although these beverages contain no
calories, they could theoretically for other reasons lead to weight gain. For
example , if the diet drinks increase appetite or cause you take more sweets or
snacks. Also some people seem more and more to drink alcoholic mixed drinks when
they are mixed with non-caloric sweeteners.
