Since the 1970’s, a new food trend came about with the goal to reduce sugar intake in people. This was believed to be a way for people to more easily manage weight and, the idea was, that less sugar means fewer calories and, therefore, less weight gain. But is that really the case? After another 30 years of research, science has released many of the findings and it looks like things aren’t exactly as they appear. The next few paragraphs will tell you what you need to know about artificial sweeteners.
The Gut Flora
Your gut has a large colony of microorganisms inside of it and, when they eat the things that you eat, there can be good and bad effects that result. Two examples are how acidic foods can tend to cause over populations of unhealthy destructive bacteria and healthy foods can help keep your gut flora alive and kill off the extra harmful bacteria. But studies have shown that artificial sweeteners can confuse or make major changes to your gut flora. This is often detrimental to one’s overall health. After many of these studies, a lot of information suggests that the sweeteners don’t even have much of an effect on weight loss.
Kids Have Other Factors
After studying a cross-section of children, researchers have concluded that kids who are overweight are generally overweight because of the types and quantities of foods that they eat on a daily basis. Diet sodas are only really meant to replace some of the sugar intake, so a child who eats a lot of fast food can drink as much diet soda as they want but it won’t make them lose weight. To lose weight, it would have to involve changes in their daily habits, including turning to natural, whole foods that are high in fiber, as opposed to their simple-carbohydrate fast-food counterparts.
Fooling Your Body Might Be Bad
Artificial sweeteners may have unintended consequence for users of the product. When your brain tastes something sweet, receptors tell your brain that your body is about to receive something to ingest. The brain then tells your pancreas to make insulin to break down the sugar so that it can be used in the body. When these sugars are not received or broken down, it could cause your body to become confused. In tests of overweight people, a lot of them showed signs of sustained insulin production. This could be very dangerous for a lot of people because this lays the beginnings of diabetes. That happens when your body no longer properly responds to sugars entering your blood.
The Bottom Line
In short, our bodies are designed to eat the foods nature provided for us: whole, unprocessed grains, proteins that are either plant-based or from wild animals fed their natural-occurring diet and not treated with hormones, as well as sugars in fruits and other natural sources (like honey and pure maple syrup), which contain the fiber needed to slow the absorption of sugar into the body, as well as delivering needed nutrients. Tricking our body with artificial sweeteners is not only unhealthy, it conditions us to continually want overly-sweet foods rather than enjoying the natural sweetness provided by mother nature.