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A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS FROM YOUR ZERO CALORIE BEVY
Jen Pfeifler Dietitian and Nutritionist | October 2022
What if the advice to use artificial sweeteners instead of other forms of sugar wasn't as beneficial as we once thought? Well it wouldn't be the first time nutrition advice has been inaccurate (remember when eggs were bad for us?), and in full transparency, it probably won't be the last. Nutrition science compared to other sciences (mathematics, physics, etc) is pretty new. To further complicate the nutrition field, attaining level A studies is actually very difficult. Why? Because humans are complex and differ with varying degrees from person to person. Add in non-concrete factors that influence our health like emotions and perceived stress and you are on a slippery slope. I say all this to say "We do the best we can with what we have. And when we know better, we do better." So keep an open mind and if we evolve with the latest research we all can do better.
Okay let's get back to artificial sweetners. I am referring to aspartame, saccharin, neotame, equal, splenda, sweet'n'low, stevia, etc. Anytime you see the word "diet" in front of a beverage, or if a food item is sweet but says 0 calories you can bet it has been artificially sweetened. These guys became very popular as a way to reduce weight gain. It was a pretty sweet deal- the sweet craving could be satisfied AND you weren't ingesting empty calories which means weight gain didn't follow. The problem is, that's not really what happens. Perhaps we should have taken a hint when saccharin (sweet'n'low) was banned in the late 1800's due to the risk of malignant bladder tumors. Since then there has been a great deal of research going on. Let me briefly tell you what they've found so you can make your own informed decisions.
Weight gain
Since artificial sweeteners are SIGNIFICANTLY more sweet than regular sugar, it starts to train your brain to crave very sweet foods. Eventually you get dependent on this sweet taste which leads to more sugar cravings leading to sweeter beverages and foods. For example if you started drinking one diet coke, eventually you might be having two, three, four diet cokes and then diet coke plus cake or cookies etc. This concept probably isn't that surprising since these artificial sweeteners can be up to 300x sweeter than sugar. If that wasn't enough to convince you, let me add the fact there are very little studies that show artificial sweeteners as a weight loss strategy. You can read more about it here.
Increased Risk for Serious Health Consequences
Weight loss may be the intention of artificial sweeteners and probably why people, particularly women went crazy for them, however the health consequences not necessarily related to weight loss are what we now get to live with in return. Conditions like stroke, dementia, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease and high blood pressure have been associated with these sweeteners. The scariest part? All it takes is 1 diet soft drink a day to increase your risk. One possible reason could be the significant spikes in blood sugar after having sucralose and saccharin which are two sweeteners in.. pretty much everything, the most common being diet sodas, gum and condiments. You can read the studies in depth here.
Changes in the Gut Microbiome
Gut health is the latest and greatest topic in the nutrition field at the moment and unlike a lot of hot topics in the past, the gut is one to take seriously. There are a ton of different bacteria that live in, on and around us. They truly are apart of our ecosystem. The bacteria that lives in our gut is greatly responsible for keeping chronic conditions like the ones mentioned above at bay. We are now seeing the disruption of this gut bacteria with sweeteners. It is thought that the sweeteners are not causing a rise in blood sugar themselves, but rather affecting the way the bacteria mediates blood sugar. Essentially it is negatively impacting the body's ability to use glucose effectively leading to conditions such as diabetes and metabolic syndrome- the exact conditions we thought we were preventing by not eating sugar!
*Important note: women with higher testosterone such as those with PCOS have less diverse gut bacteria perpetuating the condition that medications or the use of sweeteners are trying to control.
What on earth can we use if not artificial sweeteners?
Call me old fashioned, but if we get back to the principal of moderation, eating whole foods like fruits and vegetables, drinking water and exercising regularly we can still have all the simple things in life we enjoy including regular sugar. There are also other sweeteners that are natural such as maple syrup, honey, and coconut sugar which have antioxidants. You can also try spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cocoa powder in baked goods or smoothies or fresh mint, lemon and lime squeezes in your water. Again, it comes back to moderation and lots of variety in our food choices!
As always, go see a dietitian if you have questions or concerns about your diet. As I said earlier, we can only guide people on what we know at the time. It is our jobs as dietitians to stay on top of the ever-changing science so we can do better than before. I can also promise you that if your dietitian can't answer your question immediately, they have the research skills to find the answer and get back to you that doesn't involve googling or asking non-nutrition credentialed social media influencers. So, if you really want to tackle your health from the inside out, seeing a licensed practitioner is your best bet!
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