Artificial Sweeteners Make You Fat: Health Blog
And here's a study supporting what I've been telling people for years -- that not only are artificial sweeteners unhealthy, they make you fat. Yes, that's what I said. They make you fat!
If you think you're on your way to a new, svelte look because you drink diet soda, you might want to reconsider. A study out of the Ingestive Behavior Research Center at Purdue University, published in the February 2008 issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, proves what many of us in the alternative health community have been saying for years, that artificial sweeteners may throw off your body's natural calorie-counting response, leaving you more likely to overindulge in other foods. In experiments on rats, the researchers found that those fed yogurt sweetened with sugar substitutes, "consumed more calories, put on more weight, gained more body fat, and did not cut back on their calorie consumption in the longer term," when compared to rats eating yogurt sweetened with regular sugar.
Study co-author Susan Swithers points out that preliminary studies on humans have already shown a similar effect. In a 2005 survey by the University of Texas Health Science Center, those people who drink diet soft drinks actually gain weight. The study found that "for every can of diet soda people consumed each day, there was a 41% increased risk of being overweight." Swithers anticipates that, as with rats, sugar substitutes not only fail to promote weight loss; they actually lead to weight gain.
How can taking in no-calorie foods make you fat? As it turns out, quite simply.
The body regulates the hunger response based on caloric satisfaction -- when it senses you've had enough calories it gives you a signal to stop eating. Your metabolic system "naturally" registers sweet foods as calorie-rich, but when you drink diet sodas and eat artificially sweetened foods with low-caloric value, that "natural response" gets thrown off. Your brain no longer knows when to give you the "stop" signal, since sweet no longer equals calorie-rich. So after you finish the artificially sweetened food, you continue to eat and end up stuffing you face more than you would have if you had stuck to plain sugar. This phenomenon makes researchers suspect that the widespread consumption of artificial sweeteners may be tied to the sharp increase in obesity rates.
These findings add one more reason to avoid sugar substitutes, and yet, many people I know ignore the research documenting the nasty side effects because they've fixated on weight loss and think the little colored packets offer a solution. It seems that with this new data, there's just no remaining excuse for choosing aspartame, sucralose, or any of the other "devils in disguise." But in case you're still tempted -- if you still think that just maybe you'll skinny up choosing artificial sweeteners in spite of the new evidence, remember:
- Artificial sweeteners taste lousy compared to natural sweeteners.
- Artificial sweeteners are more expensive.
- And artificial sweeteners have been tied to a host of ugly side effects including: shrunken thymus glands, enlarged liver and kidneys, miscarriages, Parkinson's, fibromyalgia, lupus, breast cancer, lymphoma, seizures, and tremors.
Look, I'm certainly not advocating that you dump Splenda and start consuming sugar with abandon. Sugar has its own problems, but at least it doesn't shut off your hunger control mechanism and accelerate your weight gain.
:hc
Comments
Dear Dr. Jon, a question for you:
Since the herb Stevia also provides sweet taste without calories, is there any danger
that it might confuse the body in the same way?As far as I know it is a good herb that supports the pancreas, but it is still calorie-free sweetness.
Your expert opinion wanted, please!
| March 1, 2008 12:36 AM
Len:
That's a really good question. And I would have to say "yes," that if you used stevia exclusively, never using sugar, honey, or maple syrup every now and then, that your body would end up reprogramming itself when faced with sweets -- just as if you used artificial sweeteners, but without the other nasty side effects.
I have been consuming large amount of "sugar free" chewing gum. I suffer with IBS and have been having huge attacks of late and not knowing why. I stopped chewing for two weeks and was remarkably better and the bloating symptoms have gone. Now having read the effects of artificial sweetners, I know why. Thankyou for the info, it was a great help and answered what I suspected. The artifical sweetners hightened my problem.
Maria.
| September 19, 2008 11:53 PM
By any chance was it sweetened with xylitol -- used in many sugar free gums? Too much xylitol will definitely cause intestinal distress.
that is not true.
ok first of all in my country they taught me that everyone doesn't make it out alive in this world anyway. I am a certified nutrionist who studies science at the university of colorado. I went to yale and studied the fundementamels of nutrition. You can't just look on the internet and believe everything you read. It's not scientifically proven on the internet.
True that everything you read in the internet is not scientifically proven, but it is a start. Science tells us to investigate and compare notes. Although we are not doing it under a controlled study, who better to study their own body, than the person who knows it. If you eat peanuts and break out in a rash repeatedly, and symptoms subside when you stop, then you are going to stop. Conclusion it is the peanuts that caused the reaction. If you intake artificial sweeteners and experience symptoms only when on the sweeteners, then it is relatively safe to assume you had a reaction to such. As to every one does not make it out alive of this world, well I choose to stay alive and relatively healthy as long as possible. It is irresponsible for a "TRAINED NUTRITIONIST" To say you are going to die any way. She is suppose to be teaching good nutrition. And it is my experience that most of the trained nutritionist don't have more of a clue than the rest of us. The only teach what they were taught and western medicine has little to bring to the table in that aspect. I had been miss informed by that community for the past 11 years being a renal patient.