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Speaker 1: Does eating less sugar or a sugar detox really work?

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But there was a study that was posted, So what

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I want to do is actually do a breakdown of

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the study and then we'll come to the conclusion of

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whether or not it actually works. So the study was

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a study that was done in twenty twenty four review

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called the Sweetness Exposure Drive Sweet Tooth. It updates prior

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systematic reviews and systematic reviews look at multiple studies. They

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looked at eleven total. I believe the authors concluded the

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empirical evidence does not support the common belief that more

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sweetness exposure creates a stronger sweet tooth, or that cutting

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sweetness reduces long term cravings. Acute exposures recent ones often

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show the opposite short term effect, in fact, reduced desire

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via sensory specific satiety, while sustained changes show null or

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inconsistent results. This directly challenges popular advice like cutout sugar

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and you'll stop craving it. Some of the strengths of

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the studies that it did look at eleven and recent

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interventions and three longitudinal studies. No meaningful increase in sweet

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preference from exposure. Biologically, of course, it makes sense sweet

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taste preference has strong innate in genetic components. We found

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though some of the limitations that it's not a full

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systematic review or metal analysis. Also, there was no formal

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risk of bias tool, which means they didn't look individually

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at each tool or each study to see if it

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was any bias. At least they didn't mention they did.

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They also didn't do a great assessment that determines the

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quality of each study they looked at. In fact, observational

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cohorts still face residual confounding. This is what a lot

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of these were. There were small samples and observational cohorts

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so genetics overall diet patterns. They also did not have

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hard outcomes. They were just looking at ratings of whether

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they like sugar or more interested in sugar, instead of

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hard outcomes like free living, sugar intake, weight change, or

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quality of life. The biggest problem we see are clear

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conflicts of interest. The co author is an employee of

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Tait and Lyle, a major low energy sweetener, and Mela

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has extensive past ties as a Uniliver employee shareholder, plus

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consultancies for Cargill and others that are working in that

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low energy sweetener area. While the word disclose. These raise

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the classic science based medicine concern that industry linked reviews

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and nutrition may selectively emphasize findings favorable to sweetener positioning

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no sweet tooth backlash from using them as sugar replacements.

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Generalizability was modest, and effect sizes are essentially null because

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there is no clinically meaningful change in craving or liking.

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The practical takeaway for patients is that sugar detox claims

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lack support, but the review does not prove zero effect

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in all contexts.