White kidney beans: really anti sugar?

 

White kidney beans: really anti sugar?

It is human nature to love sweets, and the pleasure brought by sweetness runs through the whole history. Since human beings mastered the technology of sugar making, sugar has become an important flavoring agent and supplement in people's life.

On the one hand, sugar is the main energy source to ensure the normal operation of the human body; On the other hand, the sweetness of sweets can stimulate dopamine secretion in the "nucleus accumbens" and "other parts of the midbrain" in the brain to induce a pleasant response in the brain.

From this point of view, the decompression effect and pleasure brought by sweets have a "fatal" attraction for modern people who need to face high-intensity work pressure.

 

But in recent years, with the vitality of the forest, a new trend of sugar free drinks has been set off. Now major brands are on the bar with "sugar reduction". Whether it is the supermarket shelves or the purchase interface of Taobao, the products with the publicity signs of "0 sucrose" and "low sugar" unknowingly occupy the absolute "C position".

01 "low sugar" moves young consumers

In the article "dietary fructose improves internal cell survival and nutrientabsorption" published on the website of Nature magazine on August 18, 2021, it is pointed out that the increasing obesity and the rising incidence of some cancers in the world are obviously related to the increase of fructose intake in people's diet, and the underlying reason is through the absorption, digestion and metabolism of fructose.

With the rapid development of social economy and the great change of residents' lifestyle, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Chinese residents has increased rapidly. According to the report on nutrition and chronic diseases of Chinese residents (2020), the overweight and obesity rates of children and adolescents under the age of 6 and 6 ~ 17 reached 10.4% and 19.0% respectively, the overweight and obesity rates of residents aged 18 and over were 34.3% and 16.4% respectively, and more than half of adult residents were overweight or obese (50.7%). Overweight and obesity are important risk factors for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer and so on.

02 white kidney beans: really anti sugar?

White kidney bean is actually a kind of "high starch" food, so why can it be considered as anti sugar food? The secret is that it contains“ α- Amylase inhibitor ".

The digestion of starch starts from the mouth and is hydrolyzed into short chain polysaccharides under the action of salivary amylase, and a small part is hydrolyzed into maltose; The digestive enzymes in saliva are inactivated by gastric acid after entering the stomach, so the starch digestive products are not further hydrolyzed in the stomach; After entering the small intestine, it is further hydrolyzed to maltose under the action of amylase secreted by the pancreas. At the same time, maltase on the surface of small intestinal cells hydrolyzes maltose to glucose.

“ α- Amylase inhibitor "is the famous" anti sugar "substance, which can inhibit α- The activity of amylase hinders the process of starch hydrolysis, thus blocking the digestion and absorption of starch in the human body.

Therefore, white kidney bean has also become a popular net red tea in China in recent years. In Xiaohong book alone, there are more than 30000 + notes related to white kidney beans, while there are only 120000 notes related to the whole "functional food". We can see how popular white kidney beans are.