Sugar Alcohols Ruined My Health: Learn from My Mistakes

this is a video about digestive problems it's not what I normally talk about and so I've hesitated to make this video but then I thought if it helps even one single person to avoid some of the pain and sleepless nights I've gone through it'll have been worth it so here we go if you regularly suffer from abdominal pain cramps bloating gas nausea or diarrhea all of those are some about half an hour to an hour after meals you don't know why and even never heard of sugar alcohols or polios then you should watch this video the rest of you can go I'm serious please leave us suffer us alone while we talk about our intestines we don't like feeling watched here's my story I for a decade or so suffered from cramps and pain and bloating after every other meal or so and I couldn't figure out why I've no problem with either lactose or fructose or gluten I've temporarily cut out all artificial sweetness but that didn't make any difference I've meticulously written down every ingredient of what I've eaten and found no common denominator sometimes it went away for a few days then it came back I've been told by doctors that it's stress my women's things back pain radiating to the front magnesium deficiency my immune system or that all my inner organs have moved down several inches after the twin pregnancy which they have but so what I've been told I have diverticular I've had a colonoscopy and can proudly report to have seen my own colon from the inside actually was more interesting than I thought it would be but it turned out I didn't have any diverticular I've eventually been told I have irritable bowel syndrome which seems to be doctor's speech for we don't know what you have but it's the only thing left on the list now please go away after a very long time of this I could incidentally noticed a brand of cookies that suddenly started causing me problems when it previously happened the only difference was one single ingredient soit tool when I looked this up a light bulb went on in my head and that's why I'm doing this video saiton is a sugar aloh it's often added to soft cookies to prevent them from drying out sugar alcohol is a somewhat confusing name because it's neither a sugar nor an alcohol it's just that part of the molecule is like that of sugar and another part like that of alcohol but sugar alcohols are their own chemical class the thing is now that there isn't one sugar alcohol but like a dozen of them and they all have different names there's sorbital manitol cilo lacol and just when you think there AR to it there's isomalt and then there are chemicals derived from those such as sorbitan monoat and polyoxyethylene soitan monop pitard and all of these are very common food additives this is why I couldn't figure out what's causing me problems because you need a [ __ ] chemistry degree to know what's in your food and just in case that wasn't already confusing enough in German the names are somewhat different soito for example is just called zit I'll leave you a list in the info below but please don't assume that it's complete it's now clear to me that I very obviously have an intolerance to sugar alcohols I say obviously because since I've cut them out of my diet 95% of my problems have disappeared and I don't need a doctor to confirm this causal ration the remaining issue is probably that sugar alcohols are naturally contained in many fruits and vegetables and it's really difficult to entirely get rid of them but the biggest bulk of them comes from food additives I've probably had this my entire life which brings up the interesting question why I didn't notice soona the biggest part of the reason is most likely age food intolerances are usually threshold effects that is you tolerate stuff up to a certain amount this threshold tends to get lower with age which is why many people don't notice until midlife but I believe that another part of the reason is that sugar alcohols are becoming much more widely used and so the the amount we're exposed to is increasing in fact when I went through the food products in our household I found sugar ARS in like every second one everything from marmalade to cake to cookies cereal bars gummy bears candy dairy products they're contained even in dietary supplements like that magnesium I was told to take they're also often added to medication like these ibuprofen capsules and they're contained in nature nasel sprays and toothpaste ironically you also find soit all in drugs that are supposed to relieve gas or heartburn yes that's right those puls I've been taking to calm down my blubbering guts actually made it worse the major reason sugar Arles now seem to be all over the place is that they taste kind of sweet but have a lower caloric value than stut sugar and AR as bad for your teeth this makes them appealing from a health perspective they also require far less or no insulin to be metabolized which makes them suitable for diabetics at the same time they're not technically artificial sweetness so they don't have to be disclosed on food labels the labels will often just say less sugar or sometimes it'll be somewhat vaguely called a sugar substitute but most humans can't properly digest sugar AR calls the m molecules that they're made up of don't get split up in the stomach they should get absorbed in the walls of the intestine but this absorption is almost always incomplete and then bacteria go to work on what remains this is what causes most of the digestive problems it's the bacteria that are having a feast and producing a lot of gas this happens for pretty much everyone but I guess the effect must be somehow related to the microbiome you happen to have have acquired over your lifetime and chances are if you have an autoimmune problem that'll flare up along with it by the way sugar alcohol by name melti syrup was the major ingredient in the infamous sugar-free Haribo gami bears that sent people to the loom very quickly and that led to some hilarious reviews before the gummy bears were taken off the market but the global market for sugar alcohols is booming and it's projected to growth further so that I predict that diagnosis of sugar alcohol intolerance are going to Skyrocket in the coming decade in contrast to lactose and fructose intolerance there isn't currently any pull you can take that will help your body break the stuff down so other than cutting it out of your diet there isn't anything you can do though maybe somewhere someone is working on a pill that'll help us actually digest the stuff that sold us food these days wouldn't that be nice as I said earlier sugar Arles are also known as polios and they're the P of the food map diet which I had come across before but in all honesty it seemed so cumbersome that I didn't sincerely think of trying it so well I hope that this helps some of you because frankly I feel rather stupid it took me so long to figure this out I want to be clear that most people have little or no problem with sugar alcohols and I'm not saying that somehow bad or something but if you do have digestive problems and you haven't tried removing sugar alcohols do give it a try and you'll probably know very quickly if that was the cause of the problem as you can guess I've become super paranoid about what's in my phood and now we're planning to go to Paris so I've decided I better brush up on my French for this I'm using the language learning app Babble who've been sponsoring this video and which I'm happy to recomend because it just works very well bab is one of the most widely used language learning apps in the world and that's for a good reason it's super easy to use works on your phone or your browser and gets you to your goal quickly their lessons are designed by language teachers and you can complete them step by step whenever you find the time the best thing about bowel is that it teaches real world conversation such as travel business relationships asking where the restroom is you know stuff you actually need and I have an amazing special offer for you today if you use our Link in the info below you'll get 60% off your subscription that's 6 yes 60% off and you have a 20-day money back guarantee I'd be curious to know what language you'd like to learn and why maybe a bit of German I'm missan Deutch let me know in the comments thanks for watching see you tomorrow

Channel: Sabine Hossenfelder

Views: 1,341,743

Keywords: science without the gobbledygoook, hossenfelder, irritable bowel syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome treatment, sugar alcohol, sorbitol, sorbitol intolerance, digestive problem, digestive problem solution, IBS, IBS treatment

Id: K5v61YtDYo4

Length: 9min 31sec (571 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024