What are the dangers of boba for health? – Bubble milk tea is a unique drink originating from Taiwan. This drink was first released in Taiwan in 1980 and began to be sold at the tavern owned by Liu Han-Chieh.
At that time, he and his partner Lin Hsiu Hui tried to add fruit, syrup and boba to the drinks they sold. Because of its unique and delicious taste, this drink became increasingly popular and became known in 1990 in Asia, and began to spread to Europe and the USA in the 2000s.
Until now, bubble milk tea is increasingly popular, especially among teenagers. Even bubble milk tea can be used as a dessert or what we are more familiar with as ‘dessert’.
The bubble contained in this drink, or now often referred to as boba, is made from boiled tapioca to produce chewy balls and added as a topping to cold or hot tea drinks.
As boba’s popularity has grown, so has its content. Created a white and black boba. Boba is black in color, made from black tapioca, cassava starch, sweet potato and brown sugar. Meanwhile, white boba is made from cassava starch, chamomile root, and caramel.
Milk tea with a very high calorie content. High bubble milk tea contains added sugars such as sucrose, fructose, galactose, melezitose. Based on research conducted by Jae Eun Min, David B. Green and Loan Kim, bubble milk tea has a sugar content of 38 grams and calories of 299 kcal for each serving. In fact, based on the opinion of the American Hearts Association, the need for added sugar should not be more than 150 kcal/day for men and 100 kcal/day for women.
Dangers of Drinking Too Much BOBA (BUBBLE TEA)
If you order bubble tea in a large size (946 ml), added with toppings such as jelly and pudding, the sugar content will be even higher, namely as much as 250% of the sugar requirement for men and > 384% for the sugar requirement for women.
According to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a person’s need for sugar is less than 10% of total energy. However, if you drink bubble tea with the addition of jelly and pudding which contains more than 16% sugar of total energy, and contains as many as 500 kcal calories (which has reached 25% of total calorie needs).
But be careful, consuming bubble tea excessively can have a negative impact on your health, Sinaumed’s, here are some of them:
1. Obesity
Bubble tea triggers weight gain. Just imagine, a 500 ml glass of bubble tea, complete with pearls, contains around 500 calories. Even more surprising, your favorite chewy balls contribute 100-200 calories of the 500 calories. This is because pearl is made from tapioca with the basic ingredients of cassava which is a source of carbohydrates.
Consuming a glass of bubble tea already fulfills 25% of your daily calorie intake. In fact, after consuming this modern tea, you will usually still eat heavily and consume other snacks. So, it makes sense if you quickly gain weight if you drink this drink often, Sinaumed’s. Drinking bubble tea in excess can also trigger an increase in fat deposits, increased levels of triglycerides and cholesterol which can lead to obesity.
2. Disturbing Dental Health
In general, bubble tea is a mixture of tea, milk and sugar served cold. Although milk is good for dental health, other additional ingredients actually make you susceptible to dental problems, such as cavities.
This is because the sugar and other additives in bubble tea can be converted into acids by bacteria in the mouth, which can erode tooth enamel and create cavities.
Besides that boba will also make your teeth turn yellow, but based on research conducted by RJ Lee, et al, the addition of milk to tea can help reduce its bad effects. Because milk has casein which can reduce the side effects of tea in staining Sinaumed’s teeth.
3. CANCER TRIGGER
Another one of the most terrible dangers of excessive consumption of boba, namely cancer. In 2012, German researchers at University Hospital Aachen found traces of aspolychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in tapioca bubble samples. These harmful substances can trigger cancer and other effects such as a decrease in the immune system, reproductive system, and nerves.
4. Trigger Diabetes
In addition, consuming too much sugar intake in a frequent time can also result in metabolic disorders and regulation of glucose (blood sugar) in the body, which can lead to an increased risk of diabetes mellitus or diabetes. This will be easier if you have a family history of diabetes as well.
Diabetes mellitus is a silent disease that sufferers generally don’t realize, because the symptoms are mild and non-specific. Early symptoms of diabetes include frequent hunger, frequent thirst, and frequent urination.
Diabetes is generally only known when the sufferer has experienced complications or has blood tests done. If not detected and treated early, diabetes mellitus can cause various disease complications.
5. Diabetes Complications
The most frequent and early complications that people with diabetes realize are wounds that don’t heal. The wound may be minor and the cause trivial, such as a blister on your foot from a shoe.
However, these wounds are very difficult to heal, until finally they become infected, expand, and can cause gangrene (wide and deep infection) which continues to spread and can increase the risk of limb amputation. Nerve damage due to sugar buildup can also contribute to the occurrence of these injuries.
Damage to the nerves of the foot can dull the pain from the foot injury, so many people don’t notice the injury until it’s too late. In addition, diabetes can also cause other complications, such as damaging the cornea and retina, causing blindness, causing kidney failure, stroke, and heart disease.
6. Excess Fat
Bubble tea contains a lot of trans fat in every serving. Trans fat itself is a fat contained in a dish that has gone through an industrial process and aims to improve the taste and texture of food.
Too much trans fat in the body can cause cholesterol, decrease memory, and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Bubble tea can cause constipation or difficulty defecating. This is because bubble tea made from tapioca flour or starch is usually difficult for the body to digest, resulting in accumulation of body fat.
7. Triggers Contipation
A 14-year-old teenager consulted at the Chinese Hospital complaining of constipation for five days. After being examined, the doctor found that about a hundred boba grains had accumulated in his body, causing serious digestive problems.
The doctor also diagnosed this incident as being caused by raw tapioca balls or tapioca balls that were undercooked and boiled with so much sugar that it was difficult for the digestive system to digest. In addition, the guar gum content in this drink can also trigger constipation.
Guar gum is a fiber to help hold the tapioca balls together and expand when they interact with water. Guar gum can actually treat digestive problems, but if consumed in excess it can even cause constipation. However, you may only get constipated if you consume very large amounts of bubble tea
8. Uric Acid and Heart Disease
Food sources high in sugar and calories have long been associated with an increased risk of obesity and diabetes, especially among children. In addition, the presence of high levels of sugar and calories can also increase the risk factors for heart disease and gout.
Based on research conducted by Caitlin Batt, et al, frequently consuming sweet drinks more than 2 times per day can increase the risk of developing gout by 1.78 times in men and 3.05 times in women.
This is due to the presence of high and excess levels of fructose and calories which can trigger an increase in uric acid. In addition, the presence of high sugar content, can cause insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone that functions to regulate glucose levels in the blood. This can trigger type diabetes mellitus
9. High Calories Without Nutrition
Empty calories is a term for a number of types of food and drinks that have a very high number of calories but have no nutritional value at all. Bubble tea is included in the type of sweet drink with empty calories. The result of consuming excessive empty calories is that the body accumulates fat which only adds to body weight and increases the risk of other diseases.
10. Oily and Acne Skin
Boba which is made from sugar, tapioca and milk can trigger acne growth. Our skin is intolerant of lactose and the hormones in milk so it can react with testosterone in the body.
Thus, the production of sebum in the skin can cause acne. In addition, the sugar content in it has a high glycemic index, which can produce insulin spikes, increase androgen secretion, inflammation and oil production. All of these things can also trigger the development of acne.
While oily and acne-prone skin is a normal problem, it really interferes with daily activities. Acne that grows and skin color that looks dull makes us not confident. So, to avoid this problem, reduce the consumption of boba drinks. The milk and creamer contained in boba can also disrupt hormone stability, make the pores wide open and also make facial skin rougher and look dull.
11. Damage to the Liver
Another danger of drinking bubble tea is that it can cause the amount of fructose in the body to increase and can have a big effect on liver function which is slowly damaged. If you don’t immediately stop the habit of consuming bubble tea, then your body could get hepatitis, jaundice, or fatty liver in Sinaumed’s.
12. Damaging Collagen
As we know, the main ingredients for making boba drink are tapioca flour and sugar. Using sugar in excessive amounts can trigger a bad effect on your skin. As it can increase fat in the skin which can damage collagen.
Collagen is one of the proteins that make up the human body, its presence is approximately 30% of all proteins found in the body. Collagen is a substance that gives strength and flexibility to the skin and helps in replacing your dead skin cells. So, reducing the amount of boba drink consumption is the right step to prevent damage to collagen.
13. ALLERGIC TRIGGER
Just like the explanation above, the high sugar content in boba drink is indeed the main trigger for the bad effects on our skin. Excess sugar can trigger allergies, such as eczema. Eczema or eczema is inflammation of the skin layers, both in the epidermis and dermis layers. Signs of eczema include: reddish, dry, wet, thick or scaly skin. If you don’t want to get allergies like eczema or eczema, from now on, come on, reduce your consumption of boba drinks.
14. TRIGGER Constipation
Maybe, there are still many who don’t know that the danger of drinking bubble tea is that it can interfere with the digestive system. The main cause is none other than pearl balls or what is often called boba, because the addition of a substance called guar gum as a mixed ingredient in pearls is also considered to trigger constipation.
These pearl balls made from tapioca flour have a chewy texture and are very sticky, making them difficult for the digestive organs to digest and can even cause damage to the digestive tract.
This one thing has been proven from the many cases where a person has to be rushed to the hospital because the digestive tract is damaged due to frequent consumption of bubble tea. Bubble tea has also been reported to contain the chemical DEHP (di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate). These chemicals work to enhance the color and texture of the product. DEHP has been shown to reduce fertility and growth rates in animals.
Safe Tips for Drinking Boba (Bubble Tea)
For bubble tea lovers, stopping consumption of this drink completely may be difficult. Therefore, you can do the following tips to make this drink healthier, Sinaumed’s:
- Order bubble tea with reduced or no sugar. The sugars here include syrups and fruit concentrates which are often added to drinks. If possible, choose and order bubble tea that uses fresh or low-fat milk, rather than sweetened condensed milk or non-dairy creamer.
- It’s better not to add pearls to the order or ask for pearls to be reduced. Consume bubble tea in reasonable portions and frequency. For example, choose a regular (standard or small) size rather than a large (large), and don’t eat it every day.
- If you want to use boba as a ‘topping’, choose a type of drink that doesn’t use milk, for example fruit smoothies. If you want to order bubble tea that contains milk, don’t use other toppings such as boba, jelly, and pudding.
- Keep drinking sufficient amounts of water and adopt a healthy diet with balanced nutrition
- If you suffer from diabetes or have special medical conditions, you should first consult with your doctor before consuming it.
Be careful because just a drop of boba, damage your health. Indeed, the temptation to drink boba is often difficult to resist. You can try to overcome this by avoiding too many walks in the mall to fight the temptation when you see boba outlets.
In addition, you should not open the online food delivery application frequently so you are not tempted to order boba. If you really want to drink boba, you should not have too much and balance it with a healthy menu and regular physical activity, Sinaumed’s. Thus the info, hopefully useful!
Source: from various sources