Sweeteners Issues and Uncertainties (1975) / Chapter Skim
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PERSPECTIVES ON SWEETENERS
PERSPECTIVES ON SWEETENERS
Pages 11-58
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From page 11... ...
Thus, there is always the possibility that synthetic sweeteners may interact with human tissues other than those of taste. It is very important to obtain objective and quantitative information concerning the response of human taste cells to chemical stimuli.
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From page 12... ...
. Sweet preference is such a general response of animals that one may conclude that it is a result of a biological drive.
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From page 13... ...
In fact, the human fetus has taste buds five months before birth (ll)
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From page 14... ...
If sucrose has all these excellent features, what is the problem? Unfortunately, man is not always temperate, and his craving for sweets may be so great that his increased sucrose consumption both increases his total caloric intake and decreases his protein consumption.
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From page 15... ...
Perhaps the Iranian plant substance is a competitive inhibitor of sweet-containing molecules and thus eliminates sweet sensation. Inhibition can be studied by recording from the human taste nerve.
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From page 16... ...
. Taste modification, another method of satisfying the desire for sweetness without the use of sugars or artificial sweeteners, refers to a change in taste sensation and not a change in taste bud function.
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From page 17... ...
Basic information concerning the physiology and psychology of taste is seldom utilized to develop new methods to combat increased sugar consumption. I have given examples of a taste modifier and a taste inhibitor, emphasizing the need for new knowledge concerning the origin of the biological drive related to the craving for sweet foods.
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From page 18... ...
Beidler suggested that FDA had banned miracle fruit. It was my understanding that FDA said that the purveyors of miracle fruit had to prove it safe as a food additive and comply with the law.
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From page 19... ...
These include the simple sugars, the kind that we are talking about, and also very complex carbohydrates, polymeric carbohydrates. One of the most interesting aspects of our diet, the carbohydrate portion of the diet in particular, is that we seem to have moved over the past 50 years from a preponderance of polymeric carbohydrates to a preponderance of simple sugars.
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From page 20... ...
The points represent five-year moving averages, and I think that they show quite clearly what has happened. Starch has gone down, sucrose has come up, total sugars have come up, and total carbohydrates have gone down.
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From page 21... ...
Year l9l0-l9l3 l960 l974 Starch 342 l88 l79 Sugars Sucrose l0l l2l l23 Corn sweeteners 8 l9 33 Lactose 2l 25 23 Glucose 6 ll l2 Fructose 6 4 3 Maltose 2 4 4 Others l2 5 3 TOTAL SUGARS l56 l89 200 TOTAL CARBOHYDRATE 498 377 379 PERCENT OF SUGARS 3l.5 50.0 52.6 ^Compiled from USDA/ARS l972 data and sugar statistics (USDA)
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From page 22... ...
Now, as a result of a major technological development over the past five years involving immobilized enzymes -- a revolutionary development on its own, and the sweeteners development is really the first major application of immobilized enzymes -- we have the commercial production of fructose-containing corn syrups, i.e., sirups containing up to nearly a 50-50 glucose-fructose ratio. This is, of course, the ratio of glucose to fructose in sucrose.
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From page 23... ...
Meanwhile, beverages, one of the major uses of sweeteners, is going up, bakery goods usage is going up, and, in short, total processed foods use of sugars is going up. Also shown is the sucrose curve, and above that total sucrose and corn sweeteners.
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From page 24... ...
Bakery Goods 1980 FIGURE 2 Use of sugar in selected products, processed foods, and households. TABLE 3 Annual Per Capita Consumption of Sucrose and Corn Sweeteners Pounds Per Capita Annual Percent of Total Total Year Cane Beet Sucrose Corn Sugars Cane Beet Corn l950 75.7 24.7 l00.4 l5.l ll5.5 65.5 2l.4 l3.l l960 67.9 29.7 97.6 l5.5 ll3.l 60.0 26.3 l3.7 l970 72.7 29.8 l02.5 l8.5 l2l.0 60.l 24.6 l5.3 l97l 70.8 3l.6 l02.4 l9.3 l2l.7 58.2 26.0 l5.8 l972 7l.l 3l.9 l03.0 2l.0 l24.0 57.3 25.7 l7.0 l973 73.9 29.3 l03.2 23.6 l26.8 58.3 23.l l8.6 l974 68.6 27.9 96.5 26.4 l22.9 55.8 22.7 2l.5
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From page 25... ...
For example, between l955 and l965, the use of sugar in frozen desserts went up 3l percent; in baked goods, 50 percent; in soft drinks, 78 percent. Now on this base, the l973 delivery situation provides an 80 r 20 40 AGE 60 80 FIGURE 3 Average individual consumption of sugar and sweets by age and sex -- one day in spring l965.
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From page 26... ...
The data in Figure 5, at least as a starter, give you some idea of the pattern of distribution of total sweeteners, of total sucrose, of industrial sucrose moving up and of nonindustrial sucrose moving down -in other words, the discretionary portion becomes smaller. You also will see that corn sweeteners are going up.
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From page 27... ...
Table 4 presents the previous data, that is, what may happen in the period l979-l985 in terms of shares of market among the sources of nutritive sweeteners. Since there is a basis for assuming that total sugar consumption may go either up or down, Table 4 presents percentages of market at near l30 and l20 pounds per capita consumption.
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From page 28... ...
Low (%) Q Beeta Cane 22.7 55.8 23 53 24 50 23 49 25 44 Corn 2l.5 24 26 28 3l TOTAL SUGARS POUNDS l22.9 l28 l2l l30 ll8 Beet assumed annual per cap.
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From page 29... ...
DISCUSSION KASHA: Before I ask for audience questions, there is a clarification I would like to ask of the speaker. In your Table 2, citing various sweetener sources, there is an item labeled "Dietary." What is a dietary sugar?
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From page 30... ...
Cantor, about sucrose consumption. I get the sugar reports, and last year the quota was 25 billion pounds divided by, roughly, 200 million people.
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From page 31... ...
JUAN NAVIA, University of Alabama: I think that foods containing corn sweeteners or fructose, when consumed improperly -- in large quantities, frequently, and taken not with a meal but as a snack between meals -- can be as dangerous as those foods containing sucrose. So, I don't think that such substitutions would improve anything in terms of the threat of sugar-containing foods to dental health.
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From page 32... ...
If I read your charts right that is not true if one looks at total sugars. Your figure of 200 pounds included food sugars, as I understand it.
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From page 33... ...
GUSSOW: But the fructose isomerization actually enhances the sweetness of the corn syrup. CANTOR: Exactly.
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From page 34... ...
In other words, there would be strong economic motivation on the part of the processor to substitute corn sweeteners for cane and beet sugar, whereas the product became less desirable in terms of the resulting taste. The kinds of technological developments that Dr.
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From page 35... ...
If we have this vast technological capability for introducing sweetness into the North American diet, what kinds of foods does it invite? So it seems to me that in discussing these safety and health factors of sweetness or sugar, whatever you wish to call it, we have to take into consideration the kinds of foods that are produced, in other words, what kinds of foods are invited.
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From page 36... ...
are participating in a great spree of eating refined sugars and some of the new products that you heard about this morning. Therefore, I would say that the mean data may not be totally illuminating about some of the potential medical problems.
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From page 37... ...
It is commonly brought out that obesity leads to heart disease and to hypertension. When one studies these facts by modern medical methods and modern statistical methods, they fall apart to some extent, and the relationships are much less clear than people have thought.
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From page 38... ...
Those of you with medical backgrounds know that in congestive heart failure the major therapeutic problem for the physician deals with the retention of sodium chloride in the body. Although sodium chloride is an important consideration in
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From page 39... ...
Finally, we come to the fourth general area, and a rather intriguing one brought out by the loud clarion voice from London of Professor Yudkin. On the basis of epidemiologic studies of a modern sort, looking at vascular disease rather than typhoid fever or something like that, Professor Yudkin came up with a strong statement that the current epidemic, if you will, of ischemic heart disease, coronary heart disease, heart attacks, is related to our increased consumption of refined sugars.
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From page 40... ...
I would just summarize by saying, from the standpoint of a physician, that there are interesting questions being raised here today. The problem of the apparent increase in sugar composition of our diet as it relates to obesity, dental caries, diabetes mellitus in susceptible individuals, and coronary artery disease does merit our consideration.
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From page 41... ...
Keys and others, is that obesity per se, if you could isolate it in pure culture, is not a specific etiologic factor in heart disease. It may make heart disease worse, and it is so often associated with diabetes that it appears to be a risk factor, but it really is not.
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From page 42... ...
Dr. Warren has given such a clear summary of the medical perspectives of refined sugars that I would encourage him to make a statement, since he snared me just now, as to the importance of highly refined sugars versus the polymeric sugars in changing the diet of our Western culture from an increase in the purified, refined sugars and a decrease in the polymeric carbohydrates and fiber.
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From page 43... ...
But as their sugar consumption increases, the incidence of coronary artery disease is going up. Whether that is cause and effect, I have no idea.
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From page 44... ...
It makes no important difference in the total caloric intake. Nevertheless, artificial sweeteners are essential in the practical control of obesity, as I will explain tomorrow.
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From page 45... ...
Dr. Warren mentioned disease states, and we are concerned with whether there are any disease states that come from sugar consumption or changing sugar consumption patterns.
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From page 46... ...
Does any such evidence relate only to foods containing added sugar or also to ones with natural sugar or a combination of added and natural sugars?
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From page 47... ...
Should FDA scrap the term artificial sweetener in favor of nutritive/nonnutritive sweetener designations? Is there any rational reason for mixing nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners?
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From page 48... ...
For some of them, such as those on the palate and the pharynx, it may be a little later than that. When you call them sweet taste buds, keep in mind that actually they respond to many things.
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From page 49... ...
If we did that, of course, then the Federal Trade Commission would say, "Is there some compelling reason that the consumer is being deceived by this advertising or are they being conditioned,
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From page 50... ...
I think this brings a new and as yet unrecognized responsibility to the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission, as well as to private sponsors and advertisers: namely, since adults are selling to an eight-year-old child, they have a particular responsibility to include in the label and in the advertisement of a product such information as will improve that young recipient's knowledge of how properly to use that product. As yet, and I say this with great regret, the FDA, the FTC, and the FCC are unaware that they have special responsibilities to the young child in this era when adults can sell directly to the child.
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From page 51... ...
CHOATE: I think one of the pluses in sugar -- and I am quoting Fred Stare for the first time in five years - - is that sugar beets
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From page 52... ...
We have heard this morning from Dr. Warren the notion that, if you are to list the diseases that are assumed to be the consequences of the consumption of sugar, you would have to list obesity, dental caries, diabetes, and heart disease.
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From page 53... ...
It is a fact that neither the Food and Drug Administration, nor any other body of government, has been able to persuade the manufacturers of prepared foods to give us the sugar content of their foods. We have constantly sought this data in behalf of various child groups in the United States, and we cannot find any manufacturer of foods who will instantly reveal the amount of sugar in their products.
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From page 54... ...
There was the possibility that if you eat sugars, you would become obese; if you become obese, you are a candidate for heart disease. Medical literature is not going in that direction; authorities on the subject are arguing that there is no necessary causal relationship between obesity and heart disease.
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From page 55... ...
The other two items -- on the role of sugar in diabetes, the studies that you heard about that I think are significant, and the role in coronary heart disease -- are so controversial that I am inclined to put them on the negative side at the moment. I am trying to figure out, Mr.
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