Liquorice even better than beer?
And this time it’s Stuff’s turn. The headline “Liquorice loaded with health benefits” turns out to be an experiment on diabetic mice using not liquorice but specific chemicals extracted from liquorice root.
The story then admits
“The amount of amorfrutin molecules in a piece of licorice available for human consumption is far too low to cause the same beneficial effects that were identified in the diabetic mice.”
But wait, there’s more!
Glycyrrhizin is the active agent in liquorice that combats illnesses such as upper respiratory infections, and is said to lessen the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.
No actual evidence is adduced to support these claims (and we don’t even learn by whom ‘it is said‘), but it doesn’t really matter since
… the amount of real liquorice found in liquorice sweets is not standardised, making it far more safe and effective to take the recommended quantity of liquorice root or extract as a pill or powder.
so that doesn’t work either.
The take home message: the confectionery form of liquorice is loaded with sugar and starch, and some people like the taste.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »