Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Weight Gain
Here’s an interesting rat study that I came across today: Artificial Sweeteners Linked To Weight Gain
I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think using artificial sweeteners on a regular basis is a healthful endeavor. Here’s a study, in rats, showing that rats feeding constantly on artificial sweeteners gained more weight than rats feeding on sugar.
Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship, leading to positive energy balance through increased food intake and/or diminished energy expenditure. …We found that reducing the correlation between sweet taste and the caloric content of foods using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, and increased adiposity, as well as diminished caloric compensation and blunted thermic responses to sweet-tasting diets.
So the rats that ate the artificial sweetener tended to consume more calories, weigh more, and be fatter. Further, they lost the ability to determine how many calories they were eating and their metabolism didn’t increase as much in response to incoming food. Now if we could just get a study like this in humans.
Here’s why I think regular consumption of artificial sweeteners is a bad idea (logical speculation alert). Our bodies have evolved over millions of years, developing tight hormonal regulation systems that keep things in balance. As such, the body is far smarter than our big frontal lobes give them credit for.
So with the body being smarter than we think, the tongue is likely not merely a tasting organ, but is also a signaler to the hormonal control organs below of what is coming down the pipe. When it tastes something sweet, it signals “sugar” and the pancreas secretes a small dose of insulin to prepare the blood. But the sugar never hits, so the insulin, figuring “While I’m at work, I might as well do something,” clears whatever is available. That causes a blood sugar drop, which causes hunger, which causes eating. There’s my take on what happens hormonally, backed up by Dr. Mary Eades.
Now what happens to the taste buds? The human tongue is not used to the novel, intensely sweet taste of today’s packaged products. Just 10,000 years ago, our only source of sugar was from fruits and a few sweet vegetables (and an occasional beehive full of honey). You don’t have to be a botanist to know that these foods are not available year-round, meaning the taste sensation of sweetness was not available year-round.
But today, sweetness is available year-round, and that keeps the “sweet tooth” primed for finding something sweet. Given that many people, present company included, have a ravenous sweet tooth and that it’s easier to avoid sweets than to moderate them, it doesn’t strike me as a good idea to constantly bathe the tongue in something that keeps stimulating the “need” for sweetness, regardless of the caloric value. I think that’s just keeping the “sweet tooth” humming along, but trying to fool the body.
Beyond that, artificial sweeteners are man-made, in a lab. Given our track record of creating foods to fool the body, it doesn’t strike me as wise to have a constant influx of indigestible chemicals. A diet soda here and there isn’t going to kill you and is likely a better alternative than the real deal. But having several of them a day is quite a load of fake stuff going through your body.
I also think there’s a non-causative factor in that people that consume loads of artificial sweeteners probably also tend to have other traits in common, such as the consumption of lots of empty processed foods.
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Thanks for posting this, it reinforces my desire to kick the sugar habit for real. I was never one to rely on artificial sweeteners (never liked the taste), but I have noticed that if I do cave into a sugar craving & consume fruit or a little chocolate, it only increases the cravings until I’m forcing myself to say no at midnight.
I do put a bit of Splenda in my iced tea, at most 1/3 cup per pitcher. My husband likes it sweet, so sweet it will be.
That being said, I stopped drinking anything but water outside of the house, and only drink the tea I make at home. I used to be a chronic sweet tea addict, ordering it at any restaurant, thinking, “Well it’s got to be better than pop…” I quit when I realized the taste was always boring, overly sweet, and occassionally bitter. My own tea is far superior. I even make the sweet tea for family gatherings now, I’d rather take the time to do it myself than see a jug from Hardee’s on the table.
Thanks for explaining the tongue’s job in signaling the rest of the system to prepare for what’s coming. I had heard that before, but didn’t dwell on it, so it didn’t stick. Really makes saying no to even a bite of something bad a little easier. I feel like every time I say no to someone’s offer of “bad” food I am countered with “One bite won’t kill you”. I usually comply to avoid argument, but maybe now I’ll stand my ground because even one bite will set off a cascade of unnecessary reactions.
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This one is not good news for yours truly. I have cut my diet soda consumption to five or less a week. However, one of the mainstays of my diet has been sugar-free popsicles for treats. I may have several over the course of a day. They’re only 10 calories a pop, but the only thing in them that isn’t artificial is water–the rest is a chemical cocktail I probably should be avoiding. Ugh. I’m going to have to ponder this one awhile–this could be the motivation I need to drop them as well.
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I have been trying to cut back on Splenda in the coffee and other stuff. Really don’t use that much. What about natural sweeteners like oligofructose and erithrytol (which score almost zero on the glycemic index) or stevia. Do you think the body can tell the difference?
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I have RSS feeds for five health/fitness blogs on my homepage and all but one of them featured this article. There’s some discussion on one of them that artificial sweetners and stevia (actually anything that taste sweets)somehow fool the body into an insulin response. It’s another one of those topics where the science is less than conclusive, and we are stuck to make choices with inconclusive data. Of course, choosing not to placate the old sweet tooth is probably the best answer, but that’s tough for some of us (me most assuredly included!).
Again, Scott’s dictum to eat only “real food” is the safe bet!
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Interesting study results!! Did they say the quantity of artificial sweeteners the rats had in relationship to what a human would consume? For example, was it equivalent to 2 diet cokes a day for a human or 100 diet cokes per day for a human?
Thanks!
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