Dangers of Sugar Substitutes

 Cyclamate packets, Sugar substitute (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Dr. Mercola

With all the dire health effects associated with refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), many wonder what, if anything, is actually safe to use to sweeten your foods and beverages.

It’s certainly a good question. You do have to be cautious when choosing an alternative, as many sweeteners that are widely regarded as "healthy" are, in reality, anything but. A previous National Geographic article1 set out to compare eight different sugar substitutes, which fall into four general categories:

• Artificial sweeteners
• Sugar alcohols
• Natural sweeteners
• Dietary supplements

Sadly lacking from their review are any notations about adverse health effects of many of the sugar substitutes tested.

Despite copious scientific evidence of harm, artificial sweeteners, for example, are promoted in the featured article, and by “experts” in general, as safe because they “pass through your body undigested.” Needless to say, safety concerns will be front and center in this article.

The Case Against Artificial Sweeteners

Sweetener lesson 101: Avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague. While the mechanisms of harm may differ, they’re all harmful in one way or another. This includes aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), sucralose (Splenda), saccharin(Sweet'N Low), acesulfame potassium, neotame, and others.

Twenty years ago I wasn’t sure, but now there's little doubt in my mind  that artificial sweeteners can be far worse for you than sugar and fructose, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to back up that conclusion. In fact, there’s enough evidence showing the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners to fill an entire book -- which is exactly why I wrote Sweet Deception.

Aspartame is perhaps the most dangerous of the bunch. At least it’s one of the most widely used and has the most reports of adverse effects. There are also hundreds of scientific studies demonstrating its harmful effects.

This is why it’s so frustrating to see big companies like Coca-Cola Company purposely deceive you on this issue, which is exactly what they’re currently doing with their “public service” announcement-type ads, in which they “affirm” aspartame’s safety and benefits.

Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson issued the following statement in response to Coca-Cola’s new ad:2

“Aspartame has been found to cause cancer3—leukemia, lymphoma, and other tumors—in laboratory animals, and it shouldn’t be in the food supply. We certainly want Coca-Cola to shift its product mix toward lower- and no-calorie drinks, but aspartame’s reputation isn’t worth rehabilitating with this propaganda campaign.

The company would be better off phasing out its use of aspartame and accelerating its research into safer, natural sweeteners such as those extracted from the stevia plant.”

Don’t Fall for Coca-Cola’s Deceptive “Public Announcement” Ads

Besides pulling the wool over your eyes with regards to the lack of overall safety of aspartame, I think the FTC would be warranted to sue Coke and the other diet soda manufacturers for fraudulent advertising, seeing how:

1. There’s no scientific evidence showing that the use of diet sodas actually lead to weight loss.
On the contrary, studies have repeatedly shown that artificial sweeteners cause greater weight gain than regular sugar.4 Studies have also repeatedly linked artificial sweeteners with increased hunger. For example, one study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior in 19885 found that intense (no- or low-calorie) sweeteners can produce significant changes in appetite. Of the three sweeteners tested, aspartame produced the most pronounced effects.
2. Scientific evidence shows that aspartame actually worsens insulin sensitivityto a greater degree than sugar.
This is quite the blow for diabetics who obediently follow the recommendation to switch to diet sodas to manage their condition. Unfortunately, in large part due to misleading and deceptive advertising, many doctors and registered nutritionists are still under the illusion that artificial sweeteners are a safe and effective alternative for their diabetic patients.

Artificial sweeteners also appear to cause many of the same health effects associated with high sugar consumption.  Most recently, a report published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism6 highlighted the fact that diet soda drinkers suffer the same exact health problems as those who opt for regular soda, including excessive weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease andstroke.7, 8 According to the authors:

“This paper... considers the hypothesis that consuming sweet-tasting but noncaloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages interferes with learned responses that normally contribute to glucose and energy homeostasis. Because of this interference, frequent consumption of high-intensity sweeteners may have the counterintuitive effect of inducing metabolic derangements.”

So the very reason anyone would consider using diet instead of sugared sweeteners has no basis in fact. Anyone using them would get the same problems as using regular sugar and expose themselves to the well documented risks of artificial sweeteners.

Be Critical of “All Natural” Sweetener Claims

With artificial sweeteners are out of the picture, let’s look at some all-natural sweeteners. Natural sweeteners such as honey and agave may seem like a healthier choice, but not only are they loaded with fructose, many are also highly processed. In that regard, you’re not gaining a thing. The health effects will be the same, since it’s the fructose that causes the harm.

Agave syrup can even be considered worse than HFCS because it has a higher fructose content than any commercial sweetener, ranging from 70 to 97 percent depending on the brand. HFCS, in comparison, averages 55 percent fructose. What’s worse, most agave "nectar" or agave "syrup" is nothing more than a laboratory-generated super-condensed fructose syrup, devoid of virtually all nutrient value.

Honey is also high in fructose, averaging around 53 percent, but contrary to agave it is completely natural in its raw form, and has many health benefits when used in moderation. Keep in mind you’re not likely to find high quality raw honey in your local grocery store. Most of the commercial Grade A honey is highly processed and of poor quality. All in all, it’s important to realize thatregardless of the source (be it HFCS, honey or agave), refined fructose:

• Tricks your body into gaining weight by fooling your metabolism, as it turns off your body's appetite-control system. Fructose does not appropriately stimulate insulin, which in turn does not suppress ghrelin (the "hunger hormone") and doesn't stimulate leptin (the "satiety hormone"), which together result in your eating more and developing insulin resistance.
• Activates a key enzyme that causes cells to store fat; this is the so-called “fat switch” revealed in Dr. Richard Johnson’s book by the same name.
• Rapidly leads to weight gain and abdominal obesity ("beer belly"), decreased HDL, increased LDL, elevated triglycerides, elevated blood sugar, and high blood pressure—i.e., classic metabolic syndrome.
• Is broken down in your liver just like alcohol, and produces many of the side effects of chronic alcohol use, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Interestingly enough, research has shown that soft drinks increase your risk of NAFLD independently of metabolic syndrome9.
• Over time leads to insulin resistance, which is not only an underlying factor of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but also many cancers.

What About Sugar Alcohols?

Sugar alcohols can be identified by the commonality of “ol” at the end of their name, such as xylitol glucitol, sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, glycerol, and lactitol. They’re not as sweet as sugar, and they do contain fewer calories, but they’re not calorie-free. So don’t get confused by the “sugar-free” label on foods containing these sweeteners. As with all foods, you need to carefully read the food labels for calorie and carbohydrate content, regardless of any claims that the food is sugar-free or low-sugar.

One reason that sugar alcohols provide fewer calories than sugar is because they’re not completely absorbed into your body. Because of this, eating too many foods containing sugar alcohols can lead to abdominal gas and diarrhea. It’s also worth noting that maltitol, a commonly used sugar alcohol, spikes blood sugar almost as much as a starchy new potato. Xylitol, in comparison, does not have a great effect on your blood sugar, so from that perspective may be a better choice.

So, in moderation, some sugar alcohols can be a better choice than highly refined sugar, fructose or artificial sweeteners. Of the various sugar alcohols, xylitol is one of the best. When it is pure, the potential side effects are minimal, and it actually comes with some benefits such as fighting tooth decay. All in all, I would say that xylitol is reasonably safe, and potentially even a mildly beneficial sweetener. (As a side note, xylitol is toxic to dogs and some other animals, so be sure to keep it out of reach of your family pets.)

Three of the Safest Sugar-Alternatives

Two of the best sugar substitutes are from the plant kingdom: Stevia and Lo Han Guo (also spelled Luo Han Kuo). Stevia, a highly sweet herb derived from the leaf of the South American stevia plant, is sold as a supplement. It’s completely safe in its natural form and can be used to sweeten most dishes and drinks.

Keep in mind that the same cannot be said for the sugar substitute Truvia, which makes use of only certain active ingredients and not the entire plant. Rebaudioside A is the agent that provides most of the sweet taste of the plant. Usually it’s thesynergistic effect of all the agents in the plant that provide the overall health effect, which oftentimes includes “built-in protection” against potentially damaging effects, but what the FDA has approved as GRAS (generally recognized as safe) are just a couple of the active ingredients, including rebaudioside A used in Truvia.

In one toxicology review,10 the researchers point out that stevioside compounds and rebaudioside A are metabolized at different rates, making it impossible to assess the risk of rebaudioside A from toxicity assessments of stevioside (which has been used as food and medicine in Japan and South America for decades or longer). Additionally, in a human metabolism study, stevioside and rebaudioside A had different pharmacokinetic results. In layman’s terms, that means that your body reacts differently to the two compounds; each compound is metabolized differently and remains in your body for different lengths of time.

Truvia may turn out to be a very good substitute to sugar, but I’d have to see more details before giving it an enthusiastic thumbs-up – for the same reason the FDA uses as the basis for their refusal to consider Stevia GRAS: there’s just not enough evidence to prove its safety. Lo Han Kuo is another natural sweetener similar to Stevia, but it's a bit more expensive and harder to find. In China, the Lo Han fruit has been used as a sweetener for centuries, and it’s about 200 times sweeter than sugar. It received FDA GRAS status in 2009.

A third alternative is to use pure glucose. You can buy pure glucose (dextrose) for about $5-7 per pound. It is only 70 percent as sweet as sucrose, so you'll end up using a bit more of it for the same amount of sweetness, making it slightly more expensive than regular sugar—but still well worth it for your health as it does not contain any fructose whatsoever. Contrary to fructose, glucose can be used directly by every cell in your body and as such is a far safer sugar alternative.

Consider Dampening Your Sweet-Tooth...

Keep in mind though that if you have insulin issues, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or if you're overweight, you'd be best to avoid all sweeteners, including Stevia, Lo Han and dextrose, since any sweetener can decrease your insulin sensitivity. (Most important of all, remember that this goes for artificial sweeteners too!) If you're having trouble weaning yourself off sweet foods and beverages, try Turbo Tapping. It’s a clever use of the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), specifically designed to resolve many aspects of an addiction in a concentrated period of time.

Tell Coke They're a Joke!

Obesity and related metabolic diseases are serious public health problems in the United States, and you are being sorely misled by companies pretending to have a solution that, in reality, only worsen the problem. I strongly urge you to let the Coca-Cola Company know how you feel by telling them to stop their deceptive marketing of soda products. Especially their fake “public announcement” ads for aspartame.

Join me in taking a stand against false advertising and let your voice be heard. If you’re on twitter, send a tweet to #CokeCEO to let the Coca-Cola Company know you are not happy with their deceptive advertising. If you’re on Facebook, please share your thoughts with them on their Facebook Page. Please also email the Coca-Cola Company to let them know how you feel!

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Coca Cola Defends Position of Harming The Masses?

Coca-Cola (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Dr. Mercola

Earlier this year, Coca-Cola Company rolled out an ad campaign encouraging people to unite in the fight against obesity. The irony of the situation was not lost on most people however, and the ads drew fire from consumers, consumer advocates and obesity experts1,2 alike.

After all, there’s no doubt that soda is one of the primary beverages responsible for skyrocketing obesity rates, and Coke’s campaign was seen as little more than an effort in damage control.

Soda sales are down, and Coca-Cola should be applauding this fact as it is matched by some small improvements with our childhood obesity rates. Instead, they are marketing sodas harder than ever to make up for lost sales.

Coca-Cola believes a calorie is just a calorie, and if you consume more than you burn - that's why you become obese. In other words, their products and marketing to children are not to blame - the problem is that Americans just don't exerciseenough.

Now, Coca-Cola Co. has launched another ad campaign—this time to assure consumers that its no- or low-calorie beverages containing the artificial sweetener aspartame are a safe alternative. As reported in the featured article by AdWeek3:

“It's Coca-Cola's first ad explicitly defending its use of artificial sweeteners in an ad, but the print execution is an extension of the company's campaign, launched this January, to combat detractors who blame it for contributing to obesity, by pointing to the host of diet and other beverages it sells beyond traditional, sugary cola.”

According to the ad, aspartame is a “safe, high-quality alternative to sugar." Clearly they’ve not reviewed the hundreds of studies on this artificial sweetener demonstrating its harmful effects... Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson issued the following statement in response to Coca-Cola’s new ad4:

“Aspartame has been found to cause cancer5 — leukemia, lymphoma, and other tumors—in laboratory animals, and it shouldn’t be in the food supply.

We certainly want Coca-Cola to shift its product mix toward lower- and no-calorie drinks, but aspartame’s reputation isn’t worth rehabilitating with this propaganda campaign. The company would be better off phasing out its use of aspartame and accelerating its research into safer, natural sweeteners such as those extracted from the stevia plant.”

Sweet Beverages Linked to Skyrocketing Childhood Obesity Rates

As recently reported in the Guardian Express6, kids are 40 percent heavier today compared to just 25 years ago, and a growing number of studies have linked rising childhood obesity rates to increased consumption of sugary beverages—including those sweetened with no- or low-cal sweeteners:

“Aspartame has arguably been found to have the effects of increasing the appetite, fat storage stimulation, carbohydrate cravings and weight gain.

In addition to aspartame, one cup of your child’s favorite sugary drink contains nearly 11 teaspoons of sugar, at 128 calories per serving. If you equate that to a child having, on average, one cup of any soft drink containing these ingredients with each meal that is an additional 384 calories or more each day just in beverages,” the Guardian Express writes.

As a general rule, the beverage industry has denied or strongly downplayed its role in the childhood obesity epidemic, despite the fact that beverage companies spend over $1 billion annually on youth-targeted marketing—especially in school settings. According to the Guardian Express, 80 percent of American schools have contracts with Coke or Pepsi to stock their products in school vending machines.

It’s an untenable position, really. Clearly, marketing WORKS, or else they wouldn’t be doing it, and when ads target an audience of 2 to 17-year olds, it’s hardly an accident that kids in that age range opt for soda whenever they’re given a chance!

Americans currently get a majority of their daily calories from sugar, primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in soda and other sweetened beverages.

Half of the US population over the age of two consumes sugary drinks on a daily basis7, and this figure does not even include 100% fruit juices, flavored milk or sweetened teas, all of which are sugary too, which means the figure is actually even higher.

Yet this is only one side of the equation. On the other, you have artificiallysweetened beverages (and other “diet” foods), which, contrary to popular belief, carry just as much responsibility for the stubborn rise in obesity. Your body simply isn’t fooled by the lack of calories in these sweetened products, and studies have repeatedly confirmed that artificial sweeteners appear to cause even greaterweight gain than calorie-laden sweeteners.

Falling for Flawed Calorie-Counting Advice Is a Costly Mistake

Coca-Cola’s multi-million dollar “anti-obesity” campaign focuses on the outdated idea that all calories are equal, regardless of where they come from, and that consuming more calories than you burn off results in weight gain8. It’s well worth noting that this “conventional wisdom” has been firmly debunked by science. It is in fact FAR more important to look at the source of the calories than counting them. Even Weight Watchers, the world’s largest diet company, finally recognized this two years ago.

The truth is, you do not get fat because you eat too many calories and don't exercise enough. You get fat because you eat thewrong kind of calories. At the end of the day, your consumption of carbohydrates, whether in the form of grains and sugars (especially fructose), will determine whether or not you're able to manage your weight and maintain optimal health.

This is because these types of carbs (fructose and grains) affect the hormone insulin, which is a very potent fat regulator. Meanwhile, fats and proteins affect insulin to a far lesser degree.

Unfortunately, calorie-counting is still a popular misconception, around which an entire industry of “diet” foods and beverages utilizing artificial no- or low-calorie sweeteners has been built. Alas, research has repeatedly shown that artificially sweetened “diet” drinks and foods actually tend to:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase cravings for carbs, and
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain

Artificial Sweeteners Actually INCREASE Weight Gain

It is my belief that the FTC should sue Coke and the other diet soda manufacturers, for fraudulent advertising as there are no studies showing that the use of diet sodas cause one to lose weight. In fact, they actually have been shown to cause weight gain. A 2012 study published in the journal Appetite9 showed that saccharin and aspartame both cause greater weight gain than sugar. In this study, rats were fed plain yogurt sweetened with either aspartame, saccharin, or sugar, plus their regular rat chow, for 12 weeks. According to the researchers10:

“Results showed that addition of either saccharin or aspartame to yogurt resulted in increased weight gain compared to addition of sucrose, however total caloric intake was similar among groups.”

The reason for the similar calorie consumption between the groups was due to increased chow consumption by the rats given artificially sweetened yogurt. This type of compensation has been found in previous studies11 as well, indicating that when your body gets a hit of sweet taste without the calories to go with it, it adversely affects your appetite control mechanisms, causing increased food cravings. This connection between sweet taste alone and increased hunger can be found in the medical literature going back at least two decades. These two studies, for example, dating back to the late 80s and early 90s, both showed this link between artificial sweeteners and increased hunger:

• Physiology & Behavior, 198812 – In this study, they determined that intense (no- or low-calorie) sweeteners can produce significant changes in appetite. Of the three sweeteners tested, aspartame produced the most pronounced effects.
• Physiology & Behavior 199013 – Here, they again evaluated whether or not the mere taste of “sweet” increases hunger, by having human subjects chew gum for 15 minutes containing various levels of aspartame (0.05%, 0.3%, 0.5%, or 1.0%).

Interestingly, although those who chewed artificially sweetened gum reported increased hunger compared to the control group who were given nothing or unsweetened gum base to chew, the increase did not directly correlate with the aspartame concentration in the gum. Women experienced the greatest increase in hunger after chewing gum containing 0.3 percent aspartame (the second lowest concentration amount), while men were the hungriest after chewing on gum containing 0.5 percent aspartame. The authors stated:

“The highest aspartame concentrations had a time-dependent, biphasic effect on appetite, producing a transient decrease followed by a sustained increase in hunger ratings. Thus, the concentration of the sweetener, the sex of the subject, and the time after chewing, were all important determinants of whether 'sweetness' increased hunger".

Diet Soda Linked to Same Health Problems as Regular Soda

Artificial sweeteners also appear to cause many other health effects typically associated with high sugar consumption. Most recently, a report published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism14 highlighted the fact that diet soda drinkers suffer the same exact health problems as those who opt for regular soda, such as excessive weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke15,16. The authors—who were “shocked” at the results—looked at studies published in the past five years that examine the relationship between diet soda consumption and health outcomes:

“This paper discusses these findings and considers the hypothesis that consuming sweet-tasting but noncaloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages interferes with learned responses that normally contribute to glucose and energy homeostasis. Because of this interference, frequent consumption of high-intensity sweeteners may have the counterintuitive effect of inducing metabolic derangements,” they write.

Recent research has also demonstrated that aspartame worsens insulin sensitivity to a greater degree than sugar, which is quite the blow for diabetics who obediently follow the recommendation to switch to diet sodas to manage their condition. The researchers used a dosage of aspartame that approximates the ADI for aspartame in the US (approx. 50 mg/kg body weight), and not only was aspartame found to decrease insulin sensitivity compared to controls, it also wrought havoc on brain function.

The Biological Explanation Behind Aspartame’s Harmful Side Effects

According to the “aspartame safety” page 117 issued by the Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health & Wellness, “when aspartame is digested, your body breaks it down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol.” Methanol is one of the root problems with aspartame. However Coca-Cola (and many other food and beverage manufacturers) often misleadingly counter the claims of methanol being a harmful aspect of aspartame by pointing out that it also occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables.

For instance, Coca-Cola writes:

“Compared to amounts obtained from an aspartame-sweetened beverage, these components are consumed in much greater amounts from a variety of foods, including milk, meat, dried beans, fruits and vegetables... a serving of tomato juice provides about six times more methanol, compared to an equivalent serving of a beverage sweetened with aspartame.”

So why would methanol cause a problem in aspartame if it’s harmless in fruits and vegetables? There are two main points that need to be understood here:

1. Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol. This is in sharp contrast to naturally-occurring methanol found in certain fruits and vegetables, where it is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing the methanol to be safely passed through your digestive tract.
2. Your body metabolizes methyl alcohol differently than every other animal. All animals, with the exception of humans, have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid. This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn't fully apply to humans.
Here’s how this works: Both animals and humans have small structures called peroxisomes in each cell. There are a couple of hundred in every cell of your body, which are designed to detoxify a variety of chemicals. Peroxisome contains catalase, which help detoxify methanol. Other chemicals in the peroxisome convert the formaldehyde to formic acid, which is harmless, but this last step occurs only in animals. When methanol enters the peroxisome of every animal except humans, it gets into that mechanism. Humans do have the same number of peroxisomes in comparable cells as animals, but humanperoxisomes cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid.
So, in humans, methanol ends up acting as a Trojan horse. It’s carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) converts it into formaldehyde. And since there's no catalase present, the formaldehyde is free to cause enormous damage in your tissues.

Are Your Health Problems Related to Aspartame?

Symptoms from methanol poisoning include headaches, ear buzzing, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness, vertigo, chills, memory lapses, numbness and shooting pains in the extremities, behavioral disturbances, and neuritis. The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems including misty vision, progressive contraction of visual fields, blurring of vision, obscuration of vision, retinal damage, and blindness. Meanwhile, formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication and may cause birth defects.

Symptoms of methanol poisoning are very similar to the side effects of aspartame. Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well known by physicians, despite its frequency. Diagnosis is also hampered by the fact that it mimics several other common health conditions. It’s quite possible that you could be having a reaction to artificial sweeteners and not even know it, or be blaming it on another cause. To determine if you're having a reaction to artificial sweeteners, take the following steps:

• Eliminate all artificial sweeteners from your diet for two weeks.
• After two weeks of being artificial sweetener-free, reintroduce your artificial sweetener of choice in a significant quantity (about three servings daily).
• Avoid other artificial sweeteners during this period.
• Do this for one to three days and notice how you feel, especially as compared to when you were consuming no artificial sweeteners.
• If you don't notice a difference in how you feel after re-introducing your primary artificial sweetener for a few days, it's a safe bet you're able to tolerate it acutely, meaning your body doesn't have an immediate, adverse response. However, this doesn't mean your health won't be damaged in the long run.
• If you've been consuming more than one type of artificial sweetener, you can repeat steps 2 through 4 with the next one on your list.

If you do experience side effects from aspartame, please report it to the FDA (if you live in the United States) without delay. It's easy to make a report — just go to the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator page, find the phone number for your state, and make a call reporting your reaction.

Improve Your Health by Ditching Sweetened Drinks

Perhaps one of the most powerful scientific discoveries to emerge in the past several years is that the old adage “a calorie is a calorie” is patently false. The research clearly demonstrates that even if you control the number of calories you eat, if those calories come from fructose, you are at increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome, or prediabetes, which includes insulin resistance, fatty liver, high blood pressure and high triglycerides.

So please, do yourself and your family a huge favor, and don’t allow yourself to get swept up in Coca-Cola’s multi-million dollar ad campaigns, which are based on flawed, inaccurate, misleading, and patently false conventions of thinking about obesity and the role of aspartame. Let’s not forget: Coca-Cola spent $1.2 million to defeat California Proposition 37 last November, which would have required genetically engineered (GE) foods to be labeled as such (which could have included soda containing GE high fructose corn syrup). That, in and of itself, is proof positive that Coca-Cola has no concern for health conscious consumers.

Sweetened beverages, whether it’s sweetened with sugar, HFCS, naturally-occurring fructose, or artificial sweeteners like aspartame, are among the worst culprits in the fight against obesity and related health problems, including diabetes, heart and liver disease, just to name a few. Ditching ALL of these types of beverages can go a long way toward reducing your risk for chronic health problems and weight gain. So what should you drink?

Your best most cost effective choice is to drink filtered tap water. The caveat though is to make sure you filter your tap water. I've written a large number of articles on the hazards of tap water, from fluoride to dangerous chemicals and drugs, to toxic disinfection byproducts and heavy metals, so having a good filtration system in place is more of a necessity than a luxury in most areas.

Remember, nothing beats pure water when it comes to serving your body’s needs. If you really feel the urge for a carbonated beverage, try sparkling mineral water with a squirt of lime or lemon juice.

Another option to consider is to bottle your own water from a gravity-fed spring. There's a great website called FindaSpring.comwhere you can find natural springs in your area. This is a great way to get back to nature and teach your children about health and the sources of clean water. The best part is that most of these spring water sources are free! Just remember to bring either clear polyethylene or glass containers to collect the water so no unsafe chemicals can contaminate your water on the way home. If you choose to use glass bottles, be sure to wrap them in towels to keep them from breaking in the car.

Tell Coke They're a Joke!

Obesity is a serious public health problem in the United States, and you are being sorely misled by companies pretending to have a solution that, in reality, only worsen the problem. I strongly urge you to let the Coca-Cola Company know how you feel by telling them to stop their deceptive marketing of soda products.

Join me in taking a stand against false advertising and let your voice be heard. If you’re on twitter, send a tweet to #CokeCEO to let the Coca-Cola Company know you are not happy with their deceptive advertising. If you’re on Facebook, please share your thoughts with them on their Facebook Page. Please also email the Coca-Cola Company to let them know how you feel!

 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/28/soda-aspartame.aspx  Link back to Mercola.com article.

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