Sugars: what are they good for and when are they bad for us?

By Cristiano Antonino On Jan 9, 2023

We distinguish sugars or carbohydrates into two broad categories: simple sugars and complex sugars

Simple sugars are a family characterised by monosaccharides and disaccharides, found in a variety of foods:

glucose is the monosaccharide we consume most, but rarely in pure form;
fructose is a monosaccharide contained mainly in fruit and partly in honey;
galactose is a monosaccharide contained mainly in milk.

Among the disaccharides

sucrose, formed from glucose and fructose;
lactose, which is found in milk, and once digested turns into lactose, glucose and galactose;
maltose, which consists of two glucose molecules.

Both simple sugars and complex sugars are converted by digestion into monosaccharides, and their calorie intake is always 4 kcal per gram.

The most commonly consumed complex sugar is starch, a polysaccharide found in potatoes, legumes and cereals.

TYPES OF SUGAR

White sugar, brown sugar, sweetener, fructose, honey: what to choose when at the bar? What is the best balance between sweet taste and calorie intake?

Bar sugar is just sucrose: it contains no vitamins, minerals, or protective nutrients.

And between white and cane sugar, not much changes in terms of calories.

Fructose gives fewer calories because it has a higher sweetening power, so you need less: in fact, fructose sachets are smaller.

Artificial sweeteners: by now the general belief is that the less you consume the better.

Natural ones, such as polyhydric alcohols, (erythritol, mannitol, isomalt, lactitol, xylitol, sorbitol maltitol) can be a strategy.

Care must be taken because they can have a laxative effect if consumed in large quantities, causing bloating, intestinal gas and diarrhoea.

In honey, besides sugar, which is the reason we perceive it as sweet, there are also nutritional molecules that have been attributed protective effects on health, with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Honey, therefore, is considered better than sachet sugar because, in addition to having glucose and fructose, it also has nutrients that sucrose does not.

WHAT ARE SUGARS GOOD FOR?

Our organism consumes glucose: it is our energy substrate par excellence, as it is the substance used by cells to produce the energy necessary for their own functioning.

Blood glucose is the value that indicates the concentration of glucose in the blood.

Complex sugars, polysaccharides, contained in bread, pasta, legumes, are digested and absorbed very slowly, especially if they are whole-grain, because the fibre slows down their absorption.

Blood glucose will rise little and slowly, and then fall under the effect of insulin.

Simple sugars, on the other hand, do not need to be digested and are absorbed very quickly.

Blood sugar rises faster and what is called the glycaemic peak is reached.

This requires a lot more insulin and super work of the pancreas to produce it.

Particularly diabetics, or those with impaired glucose metabolism, must be very careful with their daily intake.

Excessive sugar consumption can have health consequences, increasing the risk of:

obesity;
diabetes;
chronic metabolic diseases associated with the development of kidney, heart, neurological, orthopaedic complications.

THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF SUGAR PER DAY

According to the Levels of Recommended Intake of Nutrients for the Italian Population (LARN ed. 2016), in a balanced diet (such as the Mediterranean diet) approximately 45-60% of daily calories should be taken in the form of sugars; of these only a maximum of 15% should be simple.

A total intake of more than 25% should be considered potentially linked to adverse health events.

The rest must be complex, i.e. from pasta, cereals, etc.

Otherwise, blood sugar rises too high, leading to a whole range of health problems.

WHAT ARE 15% SIMPLE SUGARS?

First of all, two portions of fruit.

International guidelines say that the correct intake of fruit and vegetables should be five portions a day, three of which should be vegetables and two of which should be fruit.

These two portions of fruit contribute to the correct proportion of 15 per cent, with the remainder coming from dairy products, milk, yoghurt.

The sweetener or sugar that we put in our coffee can be added in a small proportion.

Or the sugar contained in a food preparation, such as the sugar in morning biscuits.

SWEETENERS

Very often, simple sugars are replaced by sweeteners, so-called acaloric sweeteners: they sweeten, changing the flavour of the food and making it sweet, but they do not provide calories, do not raise blood sugar levels, and do not have all the negative effects of simple sugars.

Some sweeteners are chemical, made in a laboratory, such as saccharin or aspartame.

Others are natural, i.e. extracted from plants, such as stevia: in addition to their sweet taste, they also have a bitter aftertaste, which remains after the extraction and purification process.

HOW MUCH SUGAR IS IN SOFT DRINKS?

Soft drinks are rich in sugar.

A can of Coca Cola contains 35 grams of sugar.

If we think that one teaspoon of sugar corresponds to 5 grams, it is like putting 7 teaspoons of sugar in a coffee.

A misleading example is bitter orangeade: everyone thinks that because it is bitter, it contains little sugar.

In reality, it has 25 grams, i.e. 5 teaspoons of sugar in one can.

In a popsicle, a small cool snack, there are 12 grams of sugar, so more than two teaspoons.

The dietician believes that sugary drinks are useless, because they carry so-called ’empty calories’, i.e. they have no functional nutrients.

And since the point should be to hydrate, the recommendation is to drink water.

If one is in the mood for something sweet, better an ice cream or a slice of cake: with the same caloric value as a soft drink they give satiety and satisfaction.

Occasionally it is not serious to drink them, but the habit can lead to serious consequences.

If one gets into the habit of drinking sweet drinks every day, one introduces 300-400-500 empty calories daily, which increases one’s susceptibility to obesity or diabetes.

Even those with artificial sweeteners, which do not provide any calories, are in reality associated with an increased risk of suffering from obesity, because they promote the habit of sweet tastes by encouraging the consumption of sweet foods in the usual diet.

SUGARS AND THE GOOD MOOD

Typically, almost everyone likes sugars.

People develop a sense of taste early in life, if not even in intrauterine life, and the first taste they perceive is the sweet taste of breast milk.

In the first moments of life, the baby’s frustration phase is gratified through breastfeeding, with sweet food: when a mother gives milk to a crying baby, the sweet taste becomes a messenger of the negative emotion control system that the baby is experiencing.

We have all been through this phase, which is why sweets typically represent a time of celebration, a time of joy, of comfort.

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