The consumption of high-fat and high sugar energy-dense meals and the lack of supportive policies in health, agriculture, and others have contributed to the rise in the incidences of obesity. In addition, the increased nature of sedentary jobs, changing modes of transportation, and rapid urbanization have decreased the amount of daily physical activity. According to the National Nutrition Bureau (NNMB) 2016-2017 survey conducted on the urban population, found 34% of men and 44% of women were overweight and obese. The amount of added sugar consumed per day, according to the National Institute of Nutrition’s Dietary Guidelines for Indians (2011), should not be more than 20–25 g. The sugar intake drastically increased from 22g/day in 2000 to 55.3 g/d in 2010, which is roughly 13.2 teaspoons of white sugar, as indicated by the 66th round of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) study conducted in 2009–2010.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2015 guidelines, free sugar intake should be decreased to less than 10% of total calorie intake in both adults and children. With this remark, a range of measures targeted at lowering free sugar intake in food formulations and the possibility of regulating (reducing) calorie-dense meals is assumed to be an effective way for weight loss. The use of sugar substitutes like low calorie sweeteners (LCS) helps lower daily sugar as well as calorie intake, which can help in the management of glycemic, weight, and cardio metabolic health. As they provided little to no calories they are employed in minute amounts to bestow the necessary sweetness to the final food products. Meanwhile, natural LCS, like stevia has gained an immense interest in their toxicological acceptability and commercial development of steviol glycosides.
The current randomized control trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of completely replacing table sugar with a sugar blend in the daily diet while maintaining a healthy lifestyle, in healthy adults, with a BMI of 23-26 kg/m2 (normal to mildly overweight). The sugar blend referred here, is a novel product manufactured by combining together sugar and stevia, that gives the same sweetness with half the amount of sugar (blend), causing a 50% reduction in the calories intake. Sixty subjects were evaluated for primary outcomes as effect on weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist/hip ratio, BMI, and secondary outcomes as lipid profile, random blood sugar, and HbA1c. All these parameters were assessed at baseline, 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days.
The study observed a significant weight loss in the treatment group compared to the control group. Here, when sugar was substituted with this novel sugar blend, the weight loss in the treatment group observed was 3.393 kg (p < 0.013) compared to 1.897 kg in the sugar group, indicating a healthy strategy for losing weight with better compliance. Owing to the weight loss, there was a significant mean reduction in the other metabolic parameters studied in this trial, at the end of 90 days. A significant reduction in the sugar blend group was observed in waist circumference (p < 0.0001) by 4.4 cm, a reduction in total cholesterol (p < 0.0001), triglyceride (p = 0.006), LDL cholesterol (p = 0.0490), and VLDL cholesterol (p = 0.006) at 90 days, compared with the baseline. The consumption of the sugar blend was found to reduce 1.7 times weight than regular table sugar (with no sugar substitutes) along with physical activity. The energy deficit and physical activity could effectively help decrease body weight, which in turn played a remarkable role in improving cardiometabolic health in individuals.
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