Showing posts with label Sugar substitute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sugar substitute. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Will Drinking Diet Soda Help You Lose Weight?

English: Diet Coke Products
English: Diet Coke Products (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 


By Dr. Mercola
Do you believe that drinking diet soda will allow you to "have your cake and eat it too" while still controlling your weight, or even shedding a few pounds? This is certainly what the soda industry wants you to believe.
Last year, Coca-Cola Company rolled out an ad campaign encouraging people to unite in the fight against obesity. The ads drew fire from consumers, consumer advocates, and obesity experts1, 2 alike.
Most people saw the campaign as little more than an effort in damage control, considering the overwhelming evidence linking soda consumption to obesity.
Soon thereafter, Coca-Cola Co. launched another ad campaign, this time assuring you that diet beverages containing the artificial sweetener aspartame are a safe alternative to regular soda.3
Now, the soda industry has taken their propaganda to the next level by publishing a study that claims to confirm what the industry has been saying all along—that drinking diet soda will help you lose weight.4, 5
Actually, the industry-funded trial claims diet soda drinkers lose weight faster than those who don't drink ANY soda at all! Talk about going for broke. As reported byTime Magazine:6
"The small study, funded in part by the American Beverage Association, divided 300 diet soda drinkers into two groups. One group could go on drinking the sweet stuff, while the other cut out diet soda entirely.
The study found that the drinkers, with intensive coaching, lost an average of 13 pounds over 12 weeks, while the abstainers, with the same coaching, lost only 9 pounds...
'The most likely explanation was that having access to drinks with sweet taste helps the [artificially-sweetened beverage] group to adhere better to the behavioral change program,' concluded study author Dr. Jim Hill..."

Funding Research—The Best PR Money Can Buy

This study comes like a knight in shining armor, "just in the nick of time," to rescue the soda industry's rapidly dwindling sales.
Growing awareness of the health dangers associated with soda, both regular and diet, has pushed beverage sales into a freefall.7 Sales of carbonated beverages in general fell three percent in 2013, while diet Coke and diet Pepsi both dropped by nearly seven percent.8
Purdue University researcher Susie Swithers9 has strongly criticized the featured study, saying it is "fatally flawed, and leaves us with little science to build on."
For example, it does not contain any information about what the non-diet soda drinkers were actually consuming. While water was suggested as the ideal beverage, did they actually drink water, or did they compensate with fruit juices and regular soda instead?
Susie Swithers' own research shows that diet drinks promote heart problems, and that animals fed artificial sweeteners develop a disrupted metabolic response to real sugar. Earlier this year, she told MedicineNet.com:10
"[Like diabetics], they become hyperglycemic. Their blood sugars go up higher than they should. They also make less of a heart-protective protein. If drinking diet soda interferes with this system, then over the long term you're taking something away that protects your cardiovascular health, and that could be what's contributing to these effects."
Furthermore, with so much evidence weighing against the safety and effectiveness of diet soda, whether for weight loss or any other disease prevention, the featured industry-funded study really offers no scientifically relevant evidence at all that might shift the balance in diet soda's favor. As Swithers notes, "this paper tells us nothing about the long-term health consequences that should be our real focus." What the study CAN do, however, is create media buzz and splashy headlines where the words "science," "study," and "proven weight loss" are favorably combined, and that is worth more than anything a PR firm might cook up.

Industry Funding Dramatically Increases Odds of Favorable Research Results

The misuse of science to further a preconceived commercial agenda is so rampant today that it can be quite tricky to determine what's what. One key factor is to determine who paid for the research, because when industry funds the research, it's virtually guaranteed to be favorable. Quite simply, an independent researcher has far less incentive to come to any particular conclusion—good or bad.
I've previously said that we've left evidence-based decision-making behind, and we're now in an era of "decision-based evidence-making." What I mean by that is that the preferred business model of an industry is created first, followed by "scientific evidence" that has been specifically created to support the established business model.
This is yet another perfect example of this. After two failed marketing campaigns (the latter of which was designed to look like a public service announcement rather than a classic advertisement), the beverage industry turned to "science" in an effort to win back customers.
As I discussed in a previous article, the Calorie Control Council is an association that represents manufacturers and suppliers of low-calorie, sugar-free, and reduced sugar foods and beverages. It is, of course, a staunch defender of aspartame's safety and effectiveness for weight management and diabetic control, and is quick to dismiss any research that suggests otherwise.
The group recently denounced research showing that post-menopausal diet soda drinkers raise their risk of heart attacks and stroke, stating that such findings "do not support the majority of the scientific evidence on the topic, and are at odds with statements from the American Heart Association."11
What many don't realize is that the Calorie Control Council has strong ties to the Kellen Company, which is instrumental in creating and managing industry front groups specifically created to mislead you about the product in question, protect industry profits, and influence regulatory agencies. Unfortunately for anyone who has fallen for the false advertising, diet soda actually tends to promote weight gain, and numerous studies that were NOT funded by industry attest to this.

The List of Studies Refuting 'Diet' Claims Is Long

Research has repeatedly shown that artificially sweetened no- or low-calorie drinks and other "diet" foods tend to stimulate your appetite, increase cravings for carbs, and stimulate fat storage and weight gain. Artificial sweeteners basically trick your body into thinking that it's going to receive sugar (calories), but when the sugar doesn't arrive, your body signals that it needs more, which results in carb cravings. Most people give in to such cravings and end up overeating on other foods and snacks.
This connection between sweet taste alone and increased hunger can be found in the medical literature going back at least two decades. But artificial sweeteners also appear to produce a variety of metabolic dysfunctions that promote weight gain. Here's a sampling of some of the studies published through the years, clearly refuting the beverage industry's claims that diet soda aids weight loss:
Preventive Medicine, 198612This study examined nearly 78,700 women aged 50-69 for one year. Artificial sweetener usage increased with relative weight, and users were significantly more likely to gain weight, compared to those who did not use artificial sweeteners—regardless of their initial weight. According to the researchers, the results "were not explicable by differences in food consumption patterns. The data do not support the hypothesis that long-term artificial sweetener use either helps weight loss or prevents weight gain."
Physiology and Behavior, 198813In 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 and Behavior, 199014Here, they found that aspartame had a time-dependent effect on appetite, "producing a transient decrease followed by a sustained increase in hunger ratings."
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 199115In a study of artificial sweeteners performed on college students, there was no evidence that artificial sweetener use was associated with a decrease in their overall sugar intake either.
International Journal of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders, 200416This Purdue University study found that rats fed artificially sweetened liquids ate more high-calorie food than rats fed high-calorie sweetened liquids. The researchers believe the experience of drinking artificially sweetened liquids disrupted the animals' natural ability to compensate for the calories in the food.
San Antonio Heart Study, 200517Data gathered from the 25-year long San Antonio Heart Study also showed that drinking diet soft drinks increased the likelihood of serious weight gain – far more so than regular soda.18 On average, for each diet soft drink the participants drank per day, they were 65 percent more likely to become overweight during the next seven to eight years, and 41 percent more likely to become obese.
Journal of Biology and Medicine, 201019This study delves into the neurobiology of sugar cravings and summarizes the epidemiological and experimental evidence concerning the effect of artificial sweeteners on weight.

According to the authors: "[F]indings suggest that the calorie contained in natural sweeteners may trigger a response to keep the overall energy consumption constant. ...Increasing evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners do not activate the food reward pathways in the same fashion as natural sweeteners… [A]rtificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence."
Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 201020This review offers a summary of epidemiological and experimental evidence concerning the effects of artificial sweeteners on weight, and explains those effects in light of the neurobiology of food reward. It also shows the correlation between increased usage of artificial sweeteners in food and drinks, and the corresponding rise in obesity.
Appetite, 201221Here, researchers showed that saccharin and aspartame both cause greater weight gain than sugar, even when the total caloric intake remains similar.
Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 201322This report highlights 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 stroke.23, 24 The researchers speculate that frequent consumption of artificial sweeteners may induce metabolic derangements.

Comprehensive Review Finds You Gain Weight by Drinking Diet Soda

The 2010 review in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine25 is of particular relevance here, as it offers a great historical summary of artificial sweeteners in general, and the epidemiological and experimental evidence showing that artificial sweeteners tend to promote weight gain. It also illustrates that as usage of artificial sweeteners has risen, so has obesity rates—despite all these "diet friendly" products. According to a recent Democrat & Chronicle article,26 "a University of Texas Health Science Center study found that frequent drinkers of diet sodas had waist circumference increases that were 500 percent greater than non-drinkers of diet soda."
Source: Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine June 8, 2010: v83(2)
According to the author:
"Intuitively, people choose non-caloric artificial sweeteners over sugar to lose or maintain weight...But do artificial sweeteners actually help reduce weight? Surprisingly, epidemiologic data suggest the contrary. Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain.
The San Antonio Heart Study examined 3,682 adults over a seven to eight year period in the 1980s. When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption. Average BMI gain was +1.01 kg/m2 for control and 1.78 kg/m2 for people in the third quartile for artificially sweetened beverage consumption."
The review also highlights the 1986 study published in Preventive Medicine27 (also listed above). Again, nearly 78,700 women were included in this American Cancer Society study, and at one year follow-up, 2.7 percent to 7.1 percent more artificial sweetener users had gained weight, when compared to non-users and matched by initial weight. A later study,28 performed in the 1990s, also found that women who regularly used saccharin gained more weight over an eight year period, compared to non-users. The same kind of results are found in studies evaluating the effect of artificial sweeteners in children:
  • In one two-year long study,29 which involved 166 school children, increased diet soda consumption was associated with higher BMI at the end of the trial.
  • The Growing Up Today Study,30 which included more than 11,650 children aged 9-14, also found a positive association between diet soda consumption and weight gain in boys. Each daily serving of diet beverage was associated with a BMI increase of 0.16 kg/m2.
  • The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study31 included 2,371 girls aged 9-19 for 10 years. Soda consumption in general, both regular and diet, was associated with increase in total daily energy intake.
  • Another 2003 study looking at 3,111 children found diet soda, specifically, was associated with higher BMI.32

Diet Soda May Harm Diabetics to Greater Degree Than Sugar

How much evidence do you need before you make up your mind? Will one study showing serious harm make you think twice about drinking diet soda? Will 10... 50... 100 studies bring you to a decision? Besides decimating the claim that diet soda is a useful diet aid, studies have also linked diet drinks and artificial sweeteners to a number of other, more serious health hazards, including increased risk of stroke and cancer. There are in fact hundreds of published studies demonstrating the harmful effects of aspartame... Yet the industry keeps repeating the mantra that "no harmful effects have ever been proven."
After hearing it so many times, many actually believe this to be true. Browsing through the medical literature, however, will quickly reveal such claims to be a stretch, if not an outright lie. For starters, researchers have demonstrated that aspartame worsens insulin sensitivity to a greater degree than sugar. This is a serious blow for diabetics who follow the recommendation to switch to diet sodas to manage their condition. It's worth noting that the study in question 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!

Studies Also Warn of More Serious Health Hazards

Two years ago, preliminary research warned that diet soda appears to dramatically increase your risk of stroke. The researchers found that people who drank diet soft drinks on a daily basis were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event, including a stroke. This association persisted even after controlling for other factors that could increase the risk, such as smoking, physical activity levels, alcohol consumption, diabetes, heart disease, dietary factors, and more. According to the authors:
"This study suggests that diet soda is not an optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages, and may be associated with a greater risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death than regular soda."
Of even greater concern are the studies suggesting a link between artificial sweeteners and cancer—the number one killer of Americans under the age of 85:33
  • One lifetime feeding study published in 201034 found that aspartame induced cancers of the liver and lung in male mice. It was also carcinogenic in male and female rats.
  • The most comprehensive and longest human study — spanning 22 years — that has ever looked at aspartame toxicity was published in 2012. It evaluated the effect between aspartame intake and cancer, and the researchers found a clear association between aspartame consumption and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and leukemia.

FDA Approval Means Little When It Comes to Ascertaining Safety

As previously noted by Dr. Janet Hull,35 many tend to excuse the negative health effects of aspartame simply because it has received the stamp of approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "[T]his may not be something the American consumer can actually depend upon anymore," she writes, because "[t]he FDA rules and regulations for the approval of food additives... it has some serious flaws."
As discussed in her article, "Abusing the FDA Approval Process,"36 the FDA requires that the industry do its own researchand actually places the burden of proof on the company making the product. Dr. Hull explains:
"Basically, all the FDA is responsible for is reviewing the summaries of research conducted by the company applying for approval, typically from scientific studies the applicant has pay-rolled. Then, the company presents their reasons whytheir product should be allowed in the public food supply based on their research. At the very least, the research reports are controversial, and rarely reviewed by independent researchers not related to the industry."
Should you still be confused on this issue, thinking that the buck somehow stops at the FDA, FDA spokesman Theresa Eisenman recently clarified who is ultimately responsible for making sure a food product is safe, stating that:37 "Manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that their food products are safe and lawful..."
But what company would really make a serious effort to find problems with the very products they want to capitalize on? Despite this illogical premise, the FDA trusts corporations to be honest in their research and evaluations. How likely do you think it is that this "honor system" will actually ensure that each product released to market is safe?
When it comes to artificial sweeteners, aspartame in particular, there's no doubt in my mind that the system has protected industry profits at consumers' expense. And we've not seen the last of it. Despite mounting evidence showing that artificial sweeteners as a group have adverse health effects, the FDA has just approved yet another artificial sweetener called Advantame,38, 39 derived from a combination of aspartame and vanillin.
Being 20,000 times sweeter than refined sugar, Advantame is the sweetest artificial sweetener so far. To put this into perspective, aspartame, sucralose, and saccharine range from 200 to 700 times sweeter than sugar. Also, as reported by the LA Times:40
"Like aspartame, advantame contains phenylalanine, which is metabolized with difficulty by people with a rare genetic disorder, phenylketonuria. But because of its intense sweetness, advantame would be used at much lower volumes than is asparatame. As a result, the FDA has declared that it can be safely consumed by those with phenylketonuria."

Are You Ready to Ditch Diet Soda?

When you consume artificial sweeteners, your brain actually craves more calories because your body receives no satisfaction on a cellular level by the sugar imposter. This can contribute to not only overeating and weight gain, but also an addiction to artificial sweeteners. To break free, I recommend addressing any emotional component of your food cravings using a tool such as theEmotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
A version of EFT specifically geared toward combating sugar cravings is called Turbo Tapping. For further instructions, please see the article, "Turbo Tapping: How to Get Rid of Your Soda Addiction." The video below with EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman also demonstrates how to use EFT to fight food cravings of all kinds.



If you still have cravings after trying EFT or Turbo Tapping, you may need to make some changes to your diet. My free nutrition plan can help you do this in a step-by-step fashion. As for safer sweetener options, you could use stevia or Luo Han, both of which are safe natural sweeteners. That said, if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would likely benefit from avoiding ALL sweeteners.
Last but not least, if you experience side effects from aspartame or any other artificial sweetener, 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.

 http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2014/08/15/drinking-diet-soda.aspx


Friday, June 27, 2014

Supporting Evidence for Aspartame-Alzheimer’s Link Emerges

English: PET scan of a human brain with Alzhei...
English: PET scan of a human brain with Alzheimer's disease (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
         By Dr. Mercola
Most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend no- or low-calorie artificial sweeteners as an acceptable, and even preferred, alternative to sugar. This flawed advice can have very serious repercussions for those who follow it.
Artificial sweeteners of all kinds have been found to wreak havoc with your health in a number of different ways. Aspartame, which is perhaps the worst of the bunch, has a long list of studies indicating its harmful effects, ranging from brain damage to pre-term delivery.
Aspartame is also the number one source of side effect complaints to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with over 10,000 complaints filed and over 91 documented symptoms related to its consumption.
Most recently, studies are also starting to confirm lingering suspicions that artificial sweeteners like aspartame may play a role in the development of Alzheimer's disease, a serious form of dementia that is now thought to kill over half a million Americans each year.
The key mechanism of harm appears to be methanol toxicity—a much-ignored problem associated with aspartame in particular.
In a previous interview, toxicology expert Dr. Woodrow Monte (author of the bookWhile Science Sleeps: A Sweetener Kills1), explained the links between aspartame and methanol toxicity and the formation of formaldehyde. In light of the latest research, this interview is more relevant than ever, which is why I included it again.

Methanol Toxicity Leads to Persistent Alzheimer's Symptoms

A recently published two-part paper2, 3 highlights what Dr. Monte has been saying for many years now—that methanol acts differently in animals and humans. In this case, the researchers also discovered changes in effect between mice and rhesus monkeys.
Methanol-fed mice presented with partial "Alzheimer's disease-like symptoms," while rhesus monkeys fed a 3% methanol solution developed persistent pathological changes related to the development of Alzheimer's. According to the authors:
"A recently established link between formaldehyde, a methanol metabolite, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology has provided a new impetus to investigate the chronic effects of methanol exposure.
This paper expands this investigation to the non-human primate, rhesus macaque... [M]ethanol feeding led to persistent memory decline in the monkeys that lasted 6 months beyond the feeding regimen...
Most notably, the presence of amyloid plaque formations in the monkeys highlighted a marked difference in animal systems used in AD investigations, suggesting that the innate defenses in mice against methanol toxicity may have limited previous investigations into AD pathology.
Nonetheless, these findings support a growing body of evidence that links methanol and its metabolite formaldehyde to AD pathology." [Emphasis mine]

The Link Between Aspartame and Methanol Toxicity

The artificial sweetener industry (and makers of artificially sweetened products) has fervently claimed that aspartame is harmless, and that there's "no biological explanation" for the health problems reported by so many after consuming aspartame.
But as explained by Dr. Monte, there is indeed a biological and scientific explanation for aspartame's pathway of harm, and as the latest research suggests, it's related to the effects of methanol and formaldehyde, both of which are extremely toxic.
Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine—the latter of which has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group. This is what provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, allowing the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol.
You may have heard the claim that aspartame is harmless because methanol is also found in fruits and vegetables. However, in these whole foods the methanol is firmly bonded to pectin, which allows it to be safely passed through your digestive tract. This is not the case for the methanol created by aspartame. There, it's not bonded to anything that can help eliminate it from your body. That's problem number one...
Problem number two relates to the fact that humans are the only mammals who are NOT equipped with a protective biological mechanism that breaks down methanol into harmless formic acid. This is why animal testing of aspartame does not fully apply to humans.
According to Dr. Monte, the fact that methyl alcohol is metabolized differently in humans compared to other animals has been known since 1940. And according to the featured paper, rhesus monkeys do not appear to have the same defenses against methanol toxicity as mice do. This basically negates much of the animal research that has been used to "prove" aspartame's safety.

Methanol Acts as a Trojan Horse in Your Body

As explained by Dr. Monte, in humans, methanol ends up acting as a Trojan horse, allowing toxic formaldehyde to wreak havoc in some of your most sensitive areas, such as your brain. Here's how it 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.
Your cells also contain alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which converts methanol to formaldehydeOther chemicals in the peroxisome in turn convert the formaldehyde to formic acid, which is harmless—but this last step occurs only in animals. Human peroxisomes cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid.
Certain locations in your body, particularly in the lining of your blood vessels, and in your brain, are loaded with ADH that converts methanol to formaldehyde. But since there's no catalase present, the formaldehyde does not get converted into harmless formic acid. As a result, the formaldehyde is free to do enormous amounts of damage in your tissues.
Symptoms of 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. Formaldehyde, in turn, is a known carcinogen that causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication, and may cause birth defects.

Processed Foods Are Also High in Methanol

As I've discussed in previous articles, processed foods should be avoided as a proactive Alzheimer's prevention strategy. In his book, Grain Brain, neurologist Dr. Perlmutter reveals how the toxic activity of sugar and carbohydrates in your diet promote Alzheimer's disease. But we can also add methanol to the list of reasons for avoiding processed foods. Not only do many processed foods contain artificial sweeteners, but when fruits and vegetables are canned, for example, the methanol becomes liberated from the pectin.
At room temperature, it only takes one month for 10 percent of the methanol to be released. After about six months, virtually all of the methanol is liberated. Dr. Monte is convinced that methanol and the subsequent conversion to formaldehyde from certain processed foods (see listing below), as well as all foods containing aspartame, are a major culprit in a variety of diseases, especially multiple sclerosis (MS).
Again, methanol can slip through your blood brain barrier, and your brain is one of the areas where you find alcohol dehydrogenase, which converts methyl alcohol to formaldehyde. This causes the destruction of myelin basic protein, which is one of the triggers for MS. Demyelination also plays a role in the development of Alzheimer's and several other brain-related diseases. According to Dr. Monte:
"We know that methyl alcohol is known to be a demyelinating agent... [T]he symptoms associated with the demyelination... are identical between multiple sclerosis, and methanol poisoning, and people who consume aspartame."
He believes many diseases can be prevented if we start avoiding methanol from all sources, and he even offers a methanol-free diet on his website.4 Items to avoid include:
CigarettesTomato sauces, unless first simmered at least 3 hours, no lid on pan
Diet foods and drinks with aspartameSmoked food of any kind, particularly fish and meat
Fruit and vegetable products and their juices in bottles, cans, or pouchesChewing gum, as most chewing gum in the USA contains aspartame
Jellies, jams, and marmalades not made fresh and kept refrigeratedSlivovitz and other fruit schnapps
Black currant and tomato juice products, fresh or processedOverly ripe or near rotting fruits or vegetables

The Neurotoxic Properties of Splenda

Another popular artificial sweetener is sucralose, sold under the brand name Splenda. Sucralose is a synthetic chemical created in a five-step patented process, in which three chlorine molecules are added to one sucrose (sugar) molecule. Some will argue that natural foods also contain chloride, which is true. However, in natural foods, the chloride is connected with ionic bonds that easily dissociate when ingested. In Splenda, they're in a covalent bond that does not dissociate.
And, since your body has no enzymes to break down this covalently bound chloride, harm can ensue... The reason why your body has no enzymes for this task is because, in nature, there are NO covalent chloride bonds to organic compounds—they only exist in synthetic, man-made form. Aside from Splenda, other examples of synthetic covalently bound chloride compounds include DDT, PCBs, and Agent Orange.
Previous research indicates that about 15 percent of sucralose is absorbed into your digestive system, and ultimately stored in your body fat. A 2008 animal study5 found that Splenda reduced the amount of beneficial intestinal bacteria by 50 percent, increased the intestinal pH level, and affected a glycoprotein that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you're on certain medications.
More recent research6 detailing Splenda's oxidative effects, suggests the sweetener may have neurotoxic properties, which doesn't surprise me in the least. The researchers, who assessed the effects of sucralose on water fleas, concluded that: "exposure to sucralose may induce neurological and oxidative mechanisms with potentially important consequences for animal behavior and physiology." As reported by GreenMedInfo.com:7
"Like so many novel patented chemicals released onto the market without adequate pre-approval safety studies, we do not know if this preliminary toxicological research will be applicable to human exposures. In fact, there are only 318 study citations on this chemical in existence since it first began to be researched in the 70's. This most recent study is the first in existence to look at its effect on the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, which is found in all animals.
This information deficit is all the more remarkable when you consider there are over 7,000 published studies in existence on either turmeric or its primary polyphenol curcumin, which is still not readily administered by the conventional medical establishment mostly due to 'safety concerns,' despite what the voluminous positive data on its relevance to over 600 health conditions indicates."

FDA Approval Means Little When It Comes to Ascertaining Safety

As previously noted by Dr. Janet Hull,8 many tend to excuse the negative health effects of aspartame simply because it has received the stamp of approval by the FDA. But as discussed in her article, "Abusing the FDA Approval Process,"9 the FDA requires that the industry do its own researchand actually places the burden of proof on the company making the product. Rarely is the industry research reviewed by independent researchers. Should you still be confused on this issue, thinking that the buck somehow stops at the FDA, FDA spokesman Theresa Eisenman recently clarified who is ultimately responsible for making sure a food product is safe, stating that:10 "Manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that their food products are safe and lawful..."
But what company would really make a serious effort to find problems with the very products they want to capitalize on? Despite this illogical premise, the FDA trusts corporations to be honest in their research and evaluations. How likely do you think it is that this "honor system" will actually ensure that each product released to market is safe?
When it comes to artificial sweeteners, aspartame in particular, there's no doubt in my mind that the system has protected industry profits at consumers' expense. And we've not seen the last of it. Despite mounting evidence showing that artificial sweeteners as a group have adverse health effects, the FDA has just approved yet another artificial sweetener called Advantame,11, 12, 13 concocted from a combination of aspartame and vanillin, an artificial vanilla flavor.
Being 20,000 times sweeter than refined sugar, Advantame is the sweetest artificial sweetener so far. To put this into perspective, aspartame, sucralose, and saccharine range from 200 to 700 times sweeter than sugar. Also, as reported by the LA Times:14
"Like aspartame, advantame contains phenylalanine, which is metabolized with difficulty by people with a rare genetic disorder, phenylketonuria. But because of its intense sweetness, advantame would be used at much lower volumes than is asparatame. As a result, the FDA has declared that it can be safely consumed by those with phenylketonuria."

Having a Hard Time Giving Up Artificial Sweeteners?

When you consume artificial sweeteners, your brain actually craves more calories because your body receives no satisfaction on a cellular level by the sugar imposter. This can contribute to not only overeating and weight gain, but also an addiction to artificial sweeteners. To break free, I recommend addressing any emotional component of your food cravings using a tool such as theEmotional Freedom Technique (EFT). A version of EFT specifically geared toward combating sugar cravings is called Turbo Tapping. The video below with EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman also demonstrates how to use EFT to fight food cravings of all kinds.

If you still have cravings after trying EFT or Turbo Tapping, you may need to make some changes to your diet. My free nutrition plan can help you do this in a step-by-step fashion. As for safer sweetener options, you could use stevia or Luo Han, both of which are safe natural sweeteners. That said, if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would likely benefit from avoiding ALL sweeteners.
Last but not least, if you experience side effects from aspartame or any other artificial sweetener, 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.