According to various health organizations like the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, honey is classified as either free sugar or added sugar. While it does contain a significant amount of sugar, honey is different from regular sugar. Numerous studies and experts indicate that honey may enhance metabolism by reducing blood sugar levels.
Honey has enormous health benefits
There are over 300 varieties of honey, each with unique characteristics based on the plant source and other factors. Typically, honey has a water content of 17% and is composed of 95-99% sugar, with glucose and fructose being the primary components. A 100-gram serving of honey contains approximately 38.5 grams of fructose and 31 grams of glucose.
Additionally, 14% of the sugars in honey are rare and not commonly found in nature. These rare sugars, which are formed during the maturation process, are believed to have potential health benefits.
“Honey should not be categorized as free sugar. It is different,” Tauseef Khan, a research associate in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, stated recently.
It has been stated that honey is a blend of various types of sugar, including rare sugars that offer unique benefits. These sugars are typically found in the form of monosaccharides or disaccharides and can have potential metabolic effects.
Furthermore, many of these sugars act as prebiotics.
Compared to regular sugar, honey has been found to lower fasting blood sugar levels, decrease bad cholesterol, and increase good cholesterol.
It’s worth noting that these effects are surprising, as they would not be expected with normal sugar. In a statement regarding the discovery that honey can reduce cardiometabolic risk, an associate professor of nutritional sciences and medicine at the University of Toronto explained that these findings challenge the common belief among public health and nutrition experts that “a sugar is a sugar.”
Fighting diabetes
Have you considered swapping refined sugar for honey in your diet? Research has shown that honey can have blood sugar-lowering and anti-diabetic effects.
In fact, a long-term intervention trial in Egypt found that consuming honey water twice daily before meals, along with using honey as the sole sweetener in their diets, resulted in weight reduction, controlled blood pressure, and improved cardiovascular conditions in all 20 participants diagnosed with diabetes. None of the patients experienced diabetic ketoacidosis or hyperglycemic hyperosmolar state during the trial.
These promising results suggest that honey could be a healthy alternative to refined sugar.
We suggest that you take a look at the original study, it will blow your mind.
