人造甜味劑非常不利健康大綱

Artificial sweeteners are so bad for our health

人造甜味劑非常不利健康

Artificial sweeteners have been fooling us. We thought they were better for us than sugar but new research says they're just as bad, possibly even worse. This shocking news emerged from a study of more than 450,000 middle-aged people started 16 years ago and followed up until now.

人造甜味劑騙了我們！我們以爲它們比糖更有利於健康，但新研究表明，它們和糖一樣，甚至更糟。一項針對超過45萬名成年人的研究得出了這一令人震驚的消息，該研究從16年前開展至今。

And earlier this year two other studies rang the alarm bell, one of them finding obese women who drank just two diet drinks a day doubled their risk of stroke. This new study adds to the mounting evidence about the harm artificial sweeteners can do.

今年年初，另外兩項研究也敲響了警鐘，一項研究發現每天只喝兩杯健怡飲料的肥胖女性中風的風險增加了一倍。這項新研究爲人造甜味劑的潛在危害提供了更多證據。

Scientists found that people who drank more than two sugary drinks a day were 17% more likely to die prematurely than those who rarely had them. But, much more frightening, the risk of premature death was even higher in people who consumed drinks containing artificial sweeteners.

科學家發現：每天喝兩杯以上含糖飲料的人早死的風險比那些很少喝含糖飲料的人高17%。但更加驚恐的是，飲用含人造甜味劑飲料的人早死的風險更高。

And the case against artificial sweeteners gets even stronger. They were also found to increase the risk of heart disease by 40%. What’s going on? Well, we’re only now learning how damaging artificial sweeteners are on the 100 trillion bacteria in our guts that are so essential for our health.

反對人造甜味劑的呼聲日益增高。人們還發現人造甜味劑或使心臟病風險增加40%。這是爲什麼？直到現在我們才知道人造甜味劑會對人體腸道中的100萬億種細菌造成極大傷害，而這些細菌對我們的健康至關重要。

We've found out this intriguing fact by doing some ingenious experiments. Artificial sweeteners were given to mice that were split into three groups – some were given water, some sugary water, and some water with saccharin.

我們通過一些巧妙的實驗發現了這一有趣的事實。實驗員將小鼠分成三組，一組喂水、一組喂含糖水、另一個喂糖精水。

Mice in the saccharin group stopped being able to handle glucose, the first step on the way to diabetes. When faecal samples from the gut bacteria of these mice were given to other normal mice they also developed glucose intolerance.

糖精組的小鼠無法再處理葡萄糖，而這是邁向糖尿病的第一步。當實驗員將這些小鼠的腸道細菌的排泄樣本供給其它正常小鼠時，這些小鼠也開始出現葡萄糖耐受不良的問題。

Plus they grew bacteria associated with obesity and diabetes. The worrying finding was that the same thing happened with human beings. Why? The theory is artificial sweeteners provoke inflammation, which encourages obesity. Sure enough, a recent study of more than 7,000 American teenagers found the zero-calorie diet drinkers consumed 200 extra calories a day, which could lead to being overweight.

此外，它們還會長出與肥胖症和糖尿病相關的細菌。令人擔憂的是，這一現象也同樣發生在人類身上。爲什麼？理論情況下，人造甜味劑會引發炎症，從而加劇肥胖。果然，最近一項有關7000多位美國青少年的研究發現：喝零卡路里健怡飲品的青少年每天會額外攝入200卡，從而可能導致體重過重。