Empty calorie

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Granulated sugar supplies energy, but no nutrition other than calories AcucarCubosDSC6111.jpg
Granulated sugar supplies energy, but no nutrition other than calories

In human nutrition, the term empty calories applies to foods and beverages composed primarily or solely of sugar, fats or oils, or alcohol-containing beverages. An example is carbonated soft drinks. These supply food energy but little or no other nutrition in the way of vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, or essential fatty acids. Fat contributes nine calories per gram, ethanol seven calories, sugar four calories. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises, "A small amount of empty calories is okay, but most people eat far more than is healthy." [1] The phrase is derived from low nutrient density, which is the proportion of nutrients in a food relative to its energy content. [2]

Human nutrition provision of essential nutrients necessary to support human life and health

Human nutrition deals with the provision of essential nutrients in food that are necessary to support human life and health. Poor nutrition is a chronic problem often linked to poverty, food security or a poor understanding of nutrition and dietary practices. Malnutrition and its consequences are large contributors to deaths and disabilities worldwide. Good nutrition helps children grow physically, and helps to promote human biological development.

Food energy chemical energy that animals (including humans) derive from food and molecular oxygen through the process of cellular respiration

Food energy is chemical energy that animals derive from food through the process of cellular respiration. Cellular respiration may either involve the chemical reaction of food molecules with molecular oxygen or the process of reorganizing the food molecules without additional oxygen.

Nutrient density identifies the proportion of nutrients in foods, with terms such as nutrient rich and micronutrient dense referring to similar properties. Several different national and international standards have been developed and are in use.

Contents

The error of considering energy foods as adequate nutrition was first scientifically demonstrated by François Magendie by experiments on dogs and described in his Précis élementaire de Physiologie. He showed that only sugar, or only olive oil, or only butter, each led to the death of his test animals in 30 to 40 days. [3]

François Magendie French physiologist

François Magendie was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a Magendie sign, a downward and inward rotation of the eye due to a lesion in the cerebellum. Magendie was a faculty at the College of France, holding the Chair of Medicine from 1830 to 1855.

Examples

The following foods are often considered [4] [5] [6] [7] to contain mostly empty calories and may lead to weight gain:

Cake bread-like baked dessert

Cake is a form of sweet dessert that is typically baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of breads, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate, and that share features with other desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.

Confectionery Prepared foods made with a large amount of sugar or other carbohydrates

Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, though, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories, bakers' confections and sugar confections.

Candy sweet confection

Candy, also called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, called sugar confectionery, encompasses any sweet confection, including chocolate, chewing gum, and sugar candy. Vegetables, fruit, or nuts which have been glazed and coated with sugar are said to be candied.

Impact on other nutrients

The 'empty calories' argument is that a diet high in added sugar will reduce consumption of foods that contain essential nutrients. One review reported that for increases in consumption of added sugars, nutrients at most risk for inadequacy were vitamins E, A, C, and magnesium. For these, nutrient intake was less with each 5% increase in added sugars intake. [9]

A diet high in alcohol can have the same effect. According to one review, "Micronutrient deficiencies occur in patients with ALD (alcoholic liver disease) because the major proportion of calories derived from alcohol lack minerals and vitamins. Specific emphasis is necessary for zinc, vitamin D, thiamine, folate, cyanocobalamin, and selenium." People with ALD also display sarcopenia - muscle wasting - but it is not clear if this is due to chronic low protein intake or the disease, which is known to inhibit muscle protein synthesis. [8]

Alcoholic liver disease

Alcoholic liver disease is a term that encompasses the liver manifestations of alcohol overconsumption, including fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and chronic hepatitis with liver fibrosis or cirrhosis.

Sarcopenia is the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass, quality, and strength associated with aging. Sarcopenia is a component of the frailty syndrome. It is often a component of cachexia. It can also exist independently of cachexia; whereas cachexia includes malaise and is secondary to an underlying pathosis, sarcopenia may occur in healthy people and does not necessarily include malaise. The term is from Greek σάρξ sarx, "flesh" and πενία penia, "poverty".

Allowable intake without impacting health

Food energy intake must be balanced with activity to maintain a proper body weight. Sedentary individuals and those eating less to lose weight may suffer malnutrition if they eat food supplying empty calories but not enough nutrients. [10] [11] In contrast, people who engage in heavy physical activity need more food energy as fuel, and so can have a larger amount of calorie-rich, essential nutrient-poor foods. Dietitians and other healthcare professionals prevent malnutrition by designing eating programs and recommending dietary modifications according to patient's needs. [12] [13]

The USDA advises the following levels of empty calorie consumption as an upper limit for individuals who engage in 30 minutes or less of moderate exercise daily. [14]

GenderAge (years)Total daily calorie needsDaily limit for empty calories
Male2–31000135
4–81200–1400120
9–131800160
14–182200265
19–302400330
31–502200265
51+2000260
Female2–31000135
4–81200–1400120
9–131600120
14–181800160
19–302000260
31–501800160
51+1600120

See also

Related Research Articles

Nutrition is the science that interprets the interaction of nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism. It includes food intake, absorption, assimilation, biosynthesis, catabolism, and excretion.

Fructose A simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants

Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants, where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into blood during digestion. Fructose was discovered by French chemist Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut in 1847. The name "fructose" was coined in 1857 by the English chemist William Allen Miller. Pure, dry fructose is a sweet, white, odorless, crystalline solid, and is the most water-soluble of all the sugars. Fructose is found in honey, tree and vine fruits, flowers, berries, and most root vegetables.

Diet (nutrition) the sum of food consumed by an organism

In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons. Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.

Healthy diet diet that helps maintain or improve general health

A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.

Nutrition facts label label required on most packaged food in many countries

The nutrition facts label is a label required on most packaged food in many countries. Most countries also release overall nutrition guides for general educational purposes. In some cases, the guides are based on different dietary targets for various nutrients than the labels on specific foods.

Protein (nutrient) nutrient for the human body

Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body. They are one of the building blocks of body tissue and can also serve as a fuel source. As a fuel, proteins provide as much energy density as carbohydrates: 4 kcal per gram; in contrast, lipids provide 9 kcal per gram. The most important aspect and defining characteristic of protein from a nutritional standpoint is its amino acid composition.

Low-fat diet

A low-fat diet is one that restricts fat and often saturated fat and cholesterol as well. Low-fat diets are intended to reduce the occurrence of conditions such as heart disease and obesity. For weight loss, they perform similarly to a low-carbohydrate diet, since macronutrient composition does not determine weight loss success. Reducing fat in the diet can make it easier to cut calories. Fat provides nine calories per gram while carbohydrates and protein each provide four calories per gram, so choosing low-fat foods makes it possible to eat a larger volume of food for the same number of calories. This effect is countered by the rapidity of digestion of carbohydrates compared to fats. The Institute of Medicine recommends limiting fat intake to 35% of total calories to help prevent obesity and to help control saturated fat intake. A low-fat diet is not well defined, but a very low fat diet is one that gets less than 15% of daily calories from fat.

Western pattern diet

The Western pattern diet (WPD) or standard American diet (SAD) is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of red meat, processed meat, pre-packaged foods, butter, fried foods, high-fat dairy products, eggs, refined grains, potatoes, corn and high-sugar drinks. The modern standard American diet was brought about by fundamental lifestyle changes following the Neolithic Revolution, and, later, the Industrial Revolution.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provide nutritional advice for Americans who are more than 2 years old. The Guidelines are published every 5 years by the US Department of Agriculture, together with the US Department of Health and Human Services. The most recent edition is the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The nominal purpose of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is to help health professionals and policymakers to advise Americans about healthy choices for their diet. Although the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are purported to be based on a systematic review of the current body of nutrition science, the Advisory Committee tasked with formulating the plan for retrieval and analysis of the scientific evidence for the current edition of the DGA used a less than rigorous process for assessing the health effects of consumption of saturated fat and salt and for assessing the health effects of a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. This less than rigorous review of the nutrition science literature resulted in omission of multiple large, high-quality, clinical trials and also omission of some high-quality prospective observational studies. Some Advisory Committee members also had conflicts-of-interest that in some cases were not fully disclosed. For these reasons, the quality of the Advisory Committee's Scientific Report and the validity of the 2015 - 2020 DGA itself has been challenged by critics as being unduly influenced by commercial interests and as being flawed due to confirmation bias of some members of the Advisory Committee.

Diet and obesity

Diet plays an important role in the genesis of obesity. Personal choices, food advertising, social customs and cultural influences, as well as food availability and pricing all play a role in determining what and how much an individual eats.

Weight management

Weight management is the phrase used to describe both the techniques and underlying physiological processes that contribute to a person's ability to attain and maintain a certain weight. Most weight management techniques encompass long-term lifestyle strategies that promote healthy eating and daily physical activity. Moreover, weight management involves developing meaningful ways to track weight over time and to identify ideal body weights for different individuals.

Meal replacement

A meal replacement is a drink, bar, soup, etc. intended as a substitute for a solid food meal, usually with controlled quantities of calories and nutrients. Some drinks are in the form of a health shake. Medically prescribed meal replacement drinks include the required vitamins and minerals. Bodybuilders sometimes use meal replacements, not formulated for weight loss, to save food preparation time when they are eating 5 to 6 meals a day.

Snacking does not have a concrete definition. A study taken by Katherine Chaplin and Andrew Smith from the journal Appetite says, “Participants defined snacking as food or drink eaten between main meals”.

Robert Lustig Endocrinologist, professor

Robert H. Lustig is an American pediatric endocrinologist. He is Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he specializes in neuroendocrinology and childhood obesity. He is also director of UCSF's WATCH program, and president and co-founder of the non-profit Institute for Responsible Nutrition.

Added sugars are sugar carbohydrates added to food and beverages during their production. This type of sugar is chemically indistinguishable from naturally occurring sugars, but the term "added sugar" has become increasingly used in nutrition and medicine to help identify foods characterized by added energy. Added sugars have no nutritional value, only adding "empty calories". Consumption of added sugar is positively correlated with high calorie intake, and through it, with excess weight and obesity. Added sugars are also known as extrinsic, with naturally occurring sugars known as intrinsic.

Sweetened beverage

A sweetened beverage is any beverage with added sugar. It has been described as "liquid candy". Consumption of sweetened beverages has been linked to weight gain, obesity, and associated health risks. According to the CDC, consumption of sweetened beverages is also associated with unhealthy behaviors like smoking, not getting enough sleep and exercise, and eating fast food often and not enough fruits regularly.

References

  1. ↑ "What are empty calories?". USDA MyPlate 2011. Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  2. ↑ Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim (2013) Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, page 3, ISBN   0520952170
  3. ↑ Magendie, F. (1816) "Sur les propriétés nutritives des substances qui ne contiennent pas d’ azote", Annales de Chimie (ser. 2) 3:66-77, 408–410.
  4. ↑ "What are Empty Calories?". Choosemyplate.gov. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  5. ↑ "Beware-Empty-Calories". Webmd.com. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  6. ↑ "Definition Of Empty Calories". Livestrong.Com. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  7. ↑ "Which foods have empty calories?". Caloriecount.about.com. 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  8. 1 2 Dasarathy S (2016). "Nutrition and Alcoholic Liver Disease: Effects of Alcoholism on Nutrition, Effects of Nutrition on Alcoholic Liver Disease, and Nutritional Therapies for Alcoholic Liver Disease". Clin Liver Dis. 20 (3): 535–50. doi:10.1016/j.cld.2016.02.010. PMC   4934388  Lock-green.svg. PMID   27373615.
  9. ↑ Marriott BP, Olsho L, Hadden L, Connor P (2010). "Intake of added sugars and selected nutrients in the United States, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2006". Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 50 (3): 228–58. doi:10.1080/10408391003626223. PMID   20301013.
  10. ↑ "Healthy Weight: Caloric Balance | DNPAO | CDC". Cdc.gov. 2011-10-31. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  11. ↑ "A Healthier You - Chapter 6. Calories + Nutrients = Food". Health.gov. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  12. ↑ "Dietitians and Nutritionists : Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics". Bls.gov. 2012-07-18. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  13. ↑ "Vitamin and Nutrient Information from the Academy". Eatright.org. Archived from the original on 2013-05-08. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
  14. ↑ "Empty Calories: How Many Empty Calories Can I Have?". USDA MyPlate 2011. Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2014-01-22.
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