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Do artificial sweeteners make you fat?

Artificial sweeteners are everywhere. And I used to think a calorie is a calorie but maybe I was wrong. There is a good chance that your diet soda is making you fat.

Diet Blog has just posted the results of a study done on rats that shows that eating artificial sweeteners in the form of saccharin will actually make you gain weight faster then using the sugar itself.

Artificial sweeteners Research

I know that I have seen these kinds of results before and have always been confused by how it would work but essentially the thinking by the scientific community is that your brain notices the “sweetness” of the food and think that the artificial sweeteners it is sugar. and stores food as fat because the brain thinks that the body has more than enough fuel (calories) to keep it going.

I know that some people will say in seeing this that people are not rats but still physiologically this makes sense to me. Also, if you look at all the diet pop that is sold and people in North America just seem to be gettng bigger and bigger then maybe there is some merit in the conclusions of this research.

Do artificial sweeteners make you fat?

Does this jive with any other research? Well yes I remember that the University of Texas did a Diet soda study that showed that drinking one Diet Soda caused people to get fat and drinking two definitely caused weight gain. This was not a short study either, in fact the results were based on before and after 8 years. There would be a lot of other factors involved including the fact that people try to lose weight by replacing regular soda with diet for lower calories.

The conclusion of the artificial sweeteners study actually points this out as well

A common interpretation of the direct correlation between increased use of artificial sweeteners and increased incidence of obesity is that people have turned to calorie-free sweeteners as a means of reducing energy intake and controlling body weight.

However, our findings and theoretical framework are in closer agreement with the possibility that increased intake of no-calorie sugar substitutes could promote increased intake and body weight gain, which is consistent with recent data from prospective human clinical studies that have documented increased risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome in individuals consuming beverages sweetened with high-intensity sweeteners (e.g., Dhingra et al., 2007; Liebman et al., 2006). Although much research has been directed at selecting among these alternatives, a consensus opinion about the effectiveness of consuming artificially sweetened substances as means of weight control has yet to emerge

I have always been against diet soda anyway because they are usually sweetened with the artificial sweeteners Aspartame which as we all know is poisonous according to lots of studies, even in small doses.

So what can you take from this kind of study? Maybe that you should try to cut out all sodas or at the very least cut back and just drink regular sugar sweetened soda and take the calories for it instead. By all means look at artificial sweeteners as a problem and stick to non sweetened drinks or just water.

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Weight Loss Exercise

High Fructose Corn Syrup and You

High Fructose Corn Syrup and You

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High Fructose Corn Syrup is a man-made ingredient that can be found in nearly every variety of processed or packaged foods. This syrup, which is made from cornstarch, has been treated with an enzyme that converts some of the glucose in the molecule to fructose, which is sweeter. Because of its ability to preserve and extend processed foods’ shelf life, and being a cheaper additive than sugar, it has become a very popular ingredient by food manufacturers. HFCS has been blamed as one of the culprits in the growing obesity epidemic.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Study

A 2008 study in humans analyzed the circulating levels of glucose, insulin, leptin, ghrelin, and triacylglycerol during a 24 hour period after consuming drinks containing HFCS or sucrose. The researchers concluded that the consumption of HFCS or sucrose did not yield differing metabolic effects.

In a 2007 study, rats were fed a diet high in fat and HFCS and kept relatively sedentary for 16 weeks in an attempt to emulate the diet and lifestyle of many Americans. The rats were not forced to eat, but were able to eat as much as they wanted; they consumed a large amount of food, and the researcher, Dr. Tetri, stated that there is evidence that fructose suppresses the sensation of fullness. Within four weeks, the rats showed early signs of fatty liver disease and type II diabetes. An equivalent diet using sucrose instead of HFCS was not tested.

Shapiro fed rats a high-fructose diet for six months and compared them to rats that had been fed a fructose-free diet. Although the rats that had consumed high levels of fructose showed no change in weight, when compared to the rats that had consumed a fructose-free diet, levels of leptin in the blood of rats fed a high-fructose diet indicated the development of leptin resistance. When the rats were switched to a high-fat diet, the leptin-resistant rats, those fed a high-fructose diet, gained more weight than those who had not developed the resistance and had been fed a fructose-free diet.

Problem of High Fructose Corn Syrup

The real problem with High Fructose Corn Syrup is that it is cheap to make and is a great filler and sweetner for manufacturers. I would bet that if you look right now in your cupboards and pantry you will find lots of products that contain High Fructose Corn syrup including:

  • Most Cereals
  • Most pop and sodas
  • Bread Products including Subway
  • Candy
  • Pop Tarts
  • Cold Medicine
  • Energy Drinks
  • Almost all sweetened mass produced products

In a 2004 commentary in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Popkin and two co-authors noted that the sharp rise in high fructose corn syrup consumption in the United States since 1970 mirrored the rise in the nation’s obesity rate.

“When we wrote the article six or seven years ago, we speculated high-fructose corn syrup might be worse” than sugar, Popkin said. “It was picked up by the blog world, and it became folklore that high fructose was poison.”

In the years since, research has shown that the body metabolizes high-fructose corn syrup differently from sugar. Some studies indicate that the syrup can have damaging effects on the kidney and liver. But strictly in terms of calories and, by extension, obesity, he said, the products are equally bad.

High Fructose Corn Syrup – Whats next?

The problem is that there has not really been a backlash like we saw a couple of years ago with the Trans Fats and the banning of them all over the place. I predict that High Fructose Corn Syrup as it becomes more of a news story will come back as a big issue for the public though.

Let’s hope the high fructose corn syrup in all of these products disappears soon.

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