A sweet temptation for dessert with benefits on inflammation. PHOTO: Eliftekkaya/Pexels.
Better than a teaspoon of sugar
Choosing how to sweeten your yogurt may seem like a purely gastronomic matter. However, the metabolic—and even digestive—effects make honey the winning choice.
By Patricia de la Torre
19 FEBRUARY 2026 / 07:30
Nobody minds a sweet treat. And although flavor experts remind us that we should train our palate to the real organoleptic nuances of each food, without adding sweeteners of any kind, the truth is that sweetening yogurt is one of those everyday gestures done almost without thinking. It can be with refined sugar, cane sugar, panela, honey, date paste, or any calorie-lowering sweetener. We usually focus only on calories, but scientists go further. A recent clinical trial published in Nutrients compares the metabolic impact of sugar and honey “and they are not equivalent at the inflammatory level,” says nutritionist Saúl Sánchez (@SaulNutri) from X (formerly Twitter).
One choice when sweetening and everything changes
The research, titled The Influence of Daily Honey-Sweetened Yogurt Intake on Outcomes of Low-Grade Inflammation, compared over four weeks the consumption of yogurt sweetened with honey or with refined sugar. In both cases, equal amounts were used in terms of calories. Twenty postmenopausal women (45-65 years) with mild overweight (BMI 25–30) participated. This profile is not incidental: it is frequently used in this type of research because menopause is associated with an increase in low-grade inflammation. In this way, it becomes clearer how small changes in the diet reflect in the body.
The main objective was to reduce a concrete inflammatory marker, the interleukin IL-23, a key cytokine of the Th17 axis, a marker of chronic inflammation that determines the cardiovascular risk of the person under study. However, another unexpected finding emerged: the interleukin IL-33 decreased with honey-sweetened yogurt and increased with sugar-sweetened yogurt. According to Sánchez, “the IL-33 acts as an alert signal of the body to tissue damage and is involved in inflammation of adipose tissue.”
Not related to the microbiota
When explaining why there are so many differences in these markers depending on whether they are sweetened with sugar or honey, the first thing ruled out was the possible dependence on the gut microbiota.
The study did not detect meaningful changes in other digestive markers that are usually associated with bacterial activity. “The effect does not depend on microbial metabolism. No significant changes were observed in fecal SCFA (acetate, butyrate, propionate), nor in plasmatic bile acids,” adds the nutritionist.
Honey wins, but why?
The most probable explanation points to the bioactive compounds present in honey. Sánchez points to the “likely direct action of certain polyphenols inhibiting NF-κB / via IL-33.” Among them, “pinocembrin, pinobanksin and chrysin.”
In plain language: those polyphenols could directly influence the body’s inflammatory pathways, attenuating those inflammatory processes.
Don’t do this at home
The study itself and the expert insist on a key warning: whether we sweeten with sugar or honey, these are added sugars. “In total there were about 34 grams of added sugars per day, well above the recommendation of less than 25 grams per day for women,” warns the expert. “This is NOT an invitation to eat more sweets.”
Note that although it improves inflammatory markers, “it does not improve glucose or lipids, nor does it justify abusing sugar, even if it is in the form of honey.”
Honey, yogurt and probiotics
These findings fit with another line of research indicating that adding honey to yogurt may help probiotics survive digestion better.
Hannah Holscher, a professor at the University of Illinois and author of two studies on the joint consumption of honey and yogurt published in The Journal of Nutrition, emphasizes this. These studies conclude that taking honey with yogurt would favor the survival in the stomach of the yogurt’s probiotics. “The enzymes in the mouth, stomach and intestines help digestion and facilitate nutrient absorption, but they reduce the viability of microbes. This is excellent when dealing with pathogens, but not necessarily when it comes to beneficial bacteria. We wanted to check whether honey could help probiotic bacteria survive in the intestine,” explains Holscher.
Monitor the weight impact
Like Sánchez, this researcher warns that honey, no matter how many benefits it provides, remains an added sugar. And, as such, it should be consumed in moderation. “One tablespoon of honey in a serving of yogurt helps probiotic survival. However, we must take into account that honey is an added sugar. Most Americans should be mindful of the amount of sugar in their diet to maintain a healthy body weight,” she notes. Her advice is to incorporate that teaspoon of honey into plain, unsweetened yogurt within a varied and energy-balanced diet.
