Don't eat fruit like this anymore, or you may get mentally disturbed...

As soon as spring comes, all kinds of fruits begin to arrive as scheduled. We eat strawberries in March and April, cherries in April and May, so what do we eat in June?

In a short while, lychees will gradually occupy all major fruit stalls. In recent years, lychee varieties have also begun to enrich. Tadpole accepted the food from his friends and ate the thick-fleshed and small-core glutinous rice lychees and the sweet and sour Guiwei lychees. They were so delicious that I couldn't stop eating them...

However, eating too many lychees can cause dry mouth and even oral ulcers. Why is this? Is it really as the saying goes: one lychee is like three fires?

Does eating lychees really cause internal heat?

In fact, it’s all caused by high sugar

In fact, dry mouth or oral ulcers caused by eating too many lychees are not caused by getting angry. Lychees are high-sugar fruits, and high sugar content will put the mouth in a hyperosmotic state, which is the main reason why you feel dry mouth. At the same time, because lychee pulp is easy to get stuck in teeth, the high-sugar residue provides nutrients for bacteria in the mouth, causing bacteria to multiply in large numbers, causing oral ulcers, and even symptoms such as gingival inflammation, swelling and pain.

In addition, excessive consumption of litchi can also lead to the occurrence of "litchi disease"!

Its main clinical manifestation is hypoglycemia, accompanied by pale complexion, dizziness, palpitations, hunger, sweating, fatigue and other symptoms. This is because lychees contain a lot of fructose, which takes a while to be converted into glucose in the body, and insulin starts to consume glucose in the blood after eating lychees. Eating too many lychees increases satiety, affecting the intake of other foods, thus causing hypoglycemia.

If you experience mild symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, and sweating after eating a large amount of lychees in a short period of time, you can first take glucose water or white sugar water, and then go to the hospital for treatment in time.

Doctors say that adults should consume no more than 10 lychees a day, and children only need 5-6. Don't eat too much!

Oral ulcers are nothing, mental disorder is the most terrible

Remember when Douyin's Li Fei became popular during the Chinese New Year because she showed off her sugar oranges? The reason for her popularity was not because she showed off a basket of sugar oranges her mother bought, but because she became unconscious after eating them and was sent to the hospital! (Sugar Orange: What did I do wrong?)

Image source: Douyin (Blogger: I am Li Fei)

Not long ago, another news about tangerines causing mental disorder became a hot topic: In Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, a long-distance truck driver in his forties ate a lot of sugar cane and tangerines every day to quench his thirst for a week. As a result, he became unconscious and had symptoms of delirium. His family rushed him to the hospital for treatment. Fortunately, due to timely treatment, the man is now fine.

Image source: Weibo

According to the doctor, the man had obvious dry mouth and polydipsia before he was admitted to the hospital. This was because he had eaten a lot of high-sugar fruits and did not drink enough water during the long journey, which caused excessive water loss in his body, resulting in a high-sugar and hyperosmotic state.

Image source: pxhere

What is hyperglycemic hyperosmotic state?

The so-called hyperglycemic hyperosmolar state refers to a syndrome in which blood sugar is greater than 33.3 mmol/L, accompanied by high blood osmotic pressure and severe dehydration without an obvious tendency to ketosis.

Hyperglycemic hyperosmolar state is also known as nonketotic hyperosmolar diabetic coma in clinical practice. It refers to the patient's body being under stress, with relatively insufficient insulin secretion in the body. At this time, the secretion of insulin counter-regulatory hormones increases significantly, and glycogen is rapidly released, resulting in severe hyperglycemia. Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state caused by high blood sugar can cause mental abnormalities, which is one of the serious acute complications of diabetes and may even lead to the risk of death.

This emergency usually requires emergency treatment measures such as large amounts of fluid replacement, intravenous insulin and sedatives. Doctors remind diabetics: the amount and type of fruit they consume on a daily basis should be strictly controlled. Once symptoms such as dry mouth, polydipsia and weight loss occur, they should monitor blood sugar changes in a timely manner.

Eating fruits can teach you a lot

After reading these news, I believe everyone will be wondering, fruits are obviously good for the human body, but why do they harm the body?

Next, we will take a general look at the classification of fruits based on their sugar content, as well as how we should eat fruits scientifically.

01 Classification of Fruits

1. Low-sugar fruit: Fruit that contains less than 10 grams of sugar per 100 grams of fruit.

Including lemon, watermelon, orange, grapefruit, peach, plum, apricot, loquat, pineapple, strawberry, cherry, cucumber, tomato, etc. Lemon has the lowest sugar content (it seems sourness makes sense).

Image source: pxhere

2. High-sugar fruits: Fruits with a sugar content of more than 10 grams per 100 grams. High-sugar fruits can be divided into the following two categories:

a. Fruits with a sugar content of 11-20 grams per 100 grams include bananas, pomegranates, melons, oranges, apples, pears, grapes, lychees, mangoes, etc.

b. Fruits with sugar content higher than 20 grams per 100 grams, including persimmon, cantaloupe, winter jujube, hawthorn, etc.

Image source: pxhere

Research shows that the sugar content of tangerines is about 10%-11%, which means that every 100 grams of tangerines contains about 10-11 grams of sugar. The sugar content of sugarcane is even higher, at 17%-18%. Therefore, both are high-sugar fruits.

02 How to eat fruit scientifically

In fact, the sugars mentioned here are mostly sucrose, glucose, fructose, etc. This kind of sugar is easily digested and absorbed by the body, so people's blood sugar will rise significantly in a short period of time after eating. No matter how delicious the fruit is, you should control it and don't eat it uncontrollably.

So how should we eat fruit?

1. The time to eat fruit. You should grasp the time to eat fruit. Generally, fruit should be eaten between two meals (such as 10 am or 3 pm). This can avoid consuming too much carbohydrates at one time and overloading the pancreas. It is generally not recommended to eat fruit before or after a meal.

2. Types of fruits. You should choose fruits according to your physical condition. For example, if you need to control your blood sugar (diabetics), you should choose fruits with relatively low sugar content and slow blood sugar increase rate; if you have low blood sugar, you can eat more high-sugar fruits to supplement the body's sugar. For details, please refer to the above fruit classification.

3. The amount of fruit eaten. According to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" released in 2021, the specific values ​​of the amount of fruit consumed by each age group are as follows: 100-150 grams/day for children aged 1-3; 150 grams/day for children aged 4-6; 150-200 grams/day for children aged 7-10; 200-300 grams/day for children and adolescents aged 11-14; 300-350 grams/day for adolescents aged 14-17; 200-350 grams/day for adults over 18 years old; and 200-300 grams/day for the elderly over 65 years old.

4. How to eat fruit. It is recommended not to squeeze juice as much as possible, just eat fresh fruit directly. After the fruit is squeezed into juice, a lot of nutrients are lost (for example, vitamin C will be oxidized and destroyed). In addition, if the pomace is thrown away, a lot of dietary fiber and minerals will be wasted. So drinking juice may seem healthy, but it is not.

Image source: pxhere

Finally, I want to remind you that although fruits are sweet, don’t be greedy. Everything should be done in moderation, which is the secret to staying healthy.

Audit expert: Wang Guoyi, Postdoctoral Fellow in Food Safety

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Tadpole Musical Notation original article, please indicate the source when reprinting

Editor/My Neighbor Totoro