糖也是一種危險(xiǎn) 毒品一樣的美味

YOUR co-worker brought in brownies, your daughtermade cookies for a holiday party and candy isarriving from far-flung relatives. Sugar is everywhere.It is celebration, it is festivity, it is love.

同事帶來了布朗尼，女兒為假期的聚會(huì)做了曲奇餅，八桿子打不著的親戚也送來了糖果。到處都是糖。糖代表了慶祝，代表了節(jié)日，也代表了愛。

It’s also dangerous. In a recent study, we showedthat sugar, perhaps more than salt, contributes tothe development of cardiovascular disease. Evidenceis growing, too, that eating too much sugar can leadto fatty liver disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and kidney disease.

但糖也是一種危險(xiǎn)。在最近的一項(xiàng)研究中，我們證明了糖分對(duì)心血管疾病的發(fā)展有推動(dòng)作用，而且其影響或許比鹽分更大。也有越來越多的證據(jù)表明，吃太多糖會(huì)引發(fā)脂肪肝、高血壓、二型糖尿病、肥胖癥和腎病。

 

 

Yet people can’t resist. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Sugar is addictive. And wedon’t mean addictive in that way that people talk about delicious foods. We mean addictive,literally, in the same way as drugs. And the food industry is doing everything it can to keep ushooked.

然而人們無法抗拒。原因也相當(dāng)簡(jiǎn)單，糖分是有成癮性的。我們所說的「成癮」并不是人們談?wù)撁牢稌r(shí)的那種意思，而是實(shí)實(shí)在在的，像毒品一樣的成癮性。而且食品工業(yè)正在竭盡所能，試圖把我們勾住。

Up until just a few hundred years ago, concentrated sugars were essentially absent from thehuman diet — besides, perhaps, the fortuitous find of small quantities of wild honey. Sugarwould have been a rare source of energy in the environment, and strong cravings for it wouldhave benefited human survival. Sugar cravings would have prompted searches for sweetfoods, the kind that help us layer on fat and store energy for times of scarcity.

直 到幾百年前，濃縮糖實(shí)際上在人類的飲食中還不存在，除非偶然間找到少量野生蜂蜜。糖分在環(huán)境中是一種罕見的能量來源，對(duì)其產(chǎn)生強(qiáng)烈的渴望，對(duì)于人類的生存 是有利的。對(duì)糖分的渴求會(huì)促使我們尋找甜味的食物，也就是幫助我們堆積脂肪、積蓄能量，以備匱乏時(shí)期的那種食物。

Today added sugar is everywhere, used in approximately 75 percent of packaged foodspurchased in the United States. The average American consumes anywhere from a quarter to ahalf pound of sugar a day. If you consider that the added sugar in a single can of soda might bemore than most people would have consumed in an entire year, just a few hundred years ago,you get a sense of how dramatically our environment has changed. The sweet craving thatonce offered a survival advantage now works against us.

今 天，添加的糖分隨處可見，在美國(guó)買到的包裝食品中，有大約75%含有添加糖分。普通的美國(guó)人平均每天消耗的糖分在四分之一磅到半磅(約合110克至220 克)之間。如果我們思考一下，今天一聽碳酸飲料里含有的添加糖分，可能高于幾百年前多數(shù)人一整年消耗的糖分，就能明白我們周圍的環(huán)境發(fā)生了多么巨大的改 變。渴求糖分曾經(jīng)是我們的生存優(yōu)勢(shì)，但現(xiàn)在卻對(duì)我們不利。

Whereas natural sugar sources like whole fruits and vegetables are generally not veryconcentrated because the sweetness is buffered by water, fiber and other constituents,modern industrial sugar sources are unnaturally potent and quickly provide a big hit. Naturalwhole foods like beets are stripped of their water, fiber, vitamins, minerals and all otherbeneficial components to produce purified sweetness. All that’s left are pure, white, sugarycrystals.

天 然的糖分來源，如完整的水果和蔬菜，糖分濃度通常并不高，因?yàn)槠渲械奶鹞队兴?、纖維和其他成分來緩沖。然而現(xiàn)代工業(yè)生產(chǎn)的糖分來源，卻濃重得不自然，很 快就能提供巨大的沖擊。就說甜菜這樣的天然完整食品，其水分、纖維、維生素、礦物質(zhì)，乃至其他所有有益成分都被剝離，用來生產(chǎn)純化的糖。剩下的就只有白色 的、純粹的糖晶體。

A comparison to drugs would not be misplaced here. Similar refinement processes transformother plants like poppies and coca into heroin and cocaine. Refined sugars also affect people’sbodies and brains.

在這里與毒品相提并論并不過分。將其他植物，如罌粟和古柯轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楹Ｂ逡蚝涂煽ㄒ虻奶峒冞^程，與上述程序是相似的。純化的糖分也會(huì)影響人的身體和大腦。

Substance use disorders, defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,exist when at least two to three symptoms from a list of 11 are present. In animal models,sugar produces at least three symptoms consistent with substance abuse and dependence:cravings, tolerance and withdrawal. Other druglike properties of sugar include (but are notlimited to) cross-sensitization, cross-tolerance, cross-dependence, reward, opioid effectsand other neurochemical changes in the brain. In animal studies, animals experience sugar like adrug and can become sugar-addicted. One study has shown that if given the choice, rats willchoose sugar over cocaine in lab settings because the reward is greater; the “high” is morepleasurable.

按 照《精神障礙診斷與統(tǒng)計(jì)手冊(cè)》(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)的定 義，列明的11項(xiàng)癥狀中存在至少兩到三種，就構(gòu)成了物質(zhì)使用障礙。在動(dòng)物模型中，糖分至少產(chǎn)生了三種與物質(zhì)濫用和依賴相吻合的癥狀：渴求感、耐受性、戒斷 癥狀。糖分其他與毒品相似的特性還包括(但不限于)交叉敏化、交叉耐受性、交叉依賴性、獎(jiǎng)賞效應(yīng)、阿片效應(yīng)，以及大腦中的其他神經(jīng)化學(xué)變化。在動(dòng)物實(shí)驗(yàn) 中，動(dòng)物對(duì)糖的感受就像一種毒品，而且可能會(huì)對(duì)糖產(chǎn)生依賴。一項(xiàng)研究顯示，如果提供了選擇，大鼠在實(shí)驗(yàn)室的環(huán)境中會(huì)選擇糖而不是可卡因，因?yàn)榍罢叩莫?jiǎng)賞效 應(yīng)更強(qiáng)，即糖帶來的「興奮感」有著更高的愉悅度。

In humans, the situation may not be very different. Sugar stimulates brain pathways just as anopioid would, and sugar has been found to be habit-forming in people. Cravings induced bysugar are comparable to those induced by addictive drugs like cocaine and nicotine. Andalthough other food components may also be pleasurable, sugar may be uniquely addictive inthe food world. For instance, functional M.R.I. tests involving milkshakes demonstrate thatit’s the sugar, not the fat, that people crave. Sugar is added to foods by an industry whosegoal is to engineer products to be as irresistible and addictive as possible. How can we kick thishabit? One route is to make foods and drinks with added sugar more expensive, throughhigher taxes. Another would be to remove sugar-sweetened beverages from places like schoolsand hospitals or to regulate sugar-added products just as we do alcohol and tobacco, forinstance, by putting restrictions on advertising and by slapping on warning labels.

對(duì) 于人類，這些情況可能也并沒有多大不同。就像鴉片類物質(zhì)一樣，糖分也會(huì)刺激大腦回路，而研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，糖分會(huì)影響人類習(xí)慣的形成。糖分產(chǎn)生的渴求感與可卡因和 尼古丁等成癮性物質(zhì)所產(chǎn)生的渴求感可以相提并論。而盡管其他的食品成分也會(huì)讓人愉悅，但是在食品當(dāng)中，糖分可能具有獨(dú)一無二的成癮性。例如，對(duì)飲用奶昔的 人進(jìn)行的功能性磁共振成像(fMRI)檢測(cè)顯示，讓人產(chǎn)生渴望的是糖分，而不是脂肪。食品企業(yè)在食品中加入糖分，目的是調(diào)整產(chǎn)品成分，使其盡可能地難以抗 拒、成癮性盡可能地強(qiáng)。我們?cè)趺床拍芙涑@個(gè)習(xí)慣?一種途徑是通過提高稅收，讓含有添加糖分的食品或飲料更昂貴。另一種途徑則是要求學(xué)校、醫(yī)院等地，停止 提供加糖增甜飲品，或者像監(jiān)管煙酒一樣監(jiān)管添加糖分的產(chǎn)品，例如對(duì)廣告加以限制，或者加注警示提醒。

But as we suggested in two academic papers, one on salt and sugar in the journal Open Heartand the other on sugar and calories in Public Health Nutrition, focusing narrowly on added sugarcould have unintended consequences. It could prompt the food industry to inject somethingequally or more harmful into processed foods, as an alternative.

但 就像我們?cè)趦善撐?mdash;—一篇發(fā)表在《開放心臟病學(xué)》(Open Heart)上，主題是鹽和糖，另一篇發(fā)表在《公共健康營(yíng)養(yǎng)學(xué)》 (Public Health Nutrition)上，主題是糖分和卡路里——里提出的，只是狹隘地關(guān)注添加糖分可能會(huì)產(chǎn)生始料未及的后果。這樣做可能 會(huì)促使企業(yè)在加工食品中，加入同樣有害，甚至危害更大的其他物質(zhì)作為替代。

A better approach to sugar rehab is to promote the consumption of whole, natural foods.Substituting whole foods for sweet industrial concoctions may be a hard sell, but in the face ofan industry that is exploiting our biological nature to keep us addicted, it may be the bestsolution for those who need that sugar fix.

擺脫糖分的更好途徑是，推廣食用未經(jīng)加工的天然食品。用完整的天然食品替代工業(yè)生產(chǎn)的甜食，或許很難讓人接受，然而面對(duì)這樣一個(gè)利用我們的生物天性讓我們成癮的產(chǎn)業(yè)，這對(duì)那些渴求糖分?jǐn)z入的人，或許是最好的方法。