Speaker 1: Does eating less sugar or a sugar detox really work?
But there was a study that was posted, So what
I want to do is actually do a breakdown of
the study and then we'll come to the conclusion of
whether or not it actually works. So the study was
a study that was done in twenty twenty four review
called the Sweetness Exposure Drive Sweet Tooth. It updates prior
systematic reviews and systematic reviews look at multiple studies. They
looked at eleven total. I believe the authors concluded the
empirical evidence does not support the common belief that more
sweetness exposure creates a stronger sweet tooth, or that cutting
sweetness reduces long term cravings. Acute exposures recent ones often
show the opposite short term effect, in fact, reduced desire
via sensory specific satiety, while sustained changes show null or
inconsistent results. This directly challenges popular advice like cutout sugar
and you'll stop craving it. Some of the strengths of
the studies that it did look at eleven and recent
interventions and three longitudinal studies. No meaningful increase in sweet
preference from exposure. Biologically, of course, it makes sense sweet
taste preference has strong innate in genetic components. We found
though some of the limitations that it's not a full
systematic review or metal analysis. Also, there was no formal
risk of bias tool, which means they didn't look individually
at each tool or each study to see if it
was any bias. At least they didn't mention they did.
They also didn't do a great assessment that determines the
quality of each study they looked at. In fact, observational
cohorts still face residual confounding. This is what a lot
of these were. There were small samples and observational cohorts
so genetics overall diet patterns. They also did not have
hard outcomes. They were just looking at ratings of whether
they like sugar or more interested in sugar, instead of
hard outcomes like free living, sugar intake, weight change, or
quality of life. The biggest problem we see are clear
conflicts of interest. The co author is an employee of
Tait and Lyle, a major low energy sweetener, and Mela
has extensive past ties as a Uniliver employee shareholder, plus
consultancies for Cargill and others that are working in that
low energy sweetener area. While the word disclose. These raise
the classic science based medicine concern that industry linked reviews
and nutrition may selectively emphasize findings favorable to sweetener positioning
no sweet tooth backlash from using them as sugar replacements.
Generalizability was modest, and effect sizes are essentially null because
there is no clinically meaningful change in craving or liking.
The practical takeaway for patients is that sugar detox claims
lack support, but the review does not prove zero effect
in all contexts.