Artificial Sweeteners Tied To Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes

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sodabottleFrom Your Health Journal…..”A very interesting article recently from CBC News which links artificial sweetners tied to obesity with type 2 diabetes. Diet soda or juice and other artificially sweetened products may cause us to eat and drink even more calories and increase our risk for obesity and Type 2 diabetes according to recent research. Sugar substitutes are more intensely sweet than sugar and may rewire taste receptors so less sweet, healthier foods aren’t as enjoyable, shifting preferences to higher calorie, and sweeter foods. Exposure to high-intensity sweeteners could change the way that sweet tastes are processed.Exposure to high-intensity sweeteners could change the way that sweet tastes are processed, as well as interfere with brain chemistry and hormones that regulate appetite and satiety. This is a very interesting finding, as artificial sweeteners may have less calories, but trick the brain in ways that may not be beneficial to our health. Please visit the CBC web site to read the complete article.”

From the article…..

High-intensity sweetener changes metabolic responses

Diet pop and other artificially sweetened products may cause us to eat and drink even more calories and increase our risk for obesity and Type 2 diabetes, researchers are learning.

Former McGill University researcher Dana Small specializes in the neuropsychology of flavour and feeding at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Small said there’s mounting evidence that artificial sweeteners have a couple of problematic effects. Sugar substitutes such as sucralose and aspartame are more intensely sweet than sugar and may rewire taste receptors so less sweet, healthier foods aren’t as enjoyable, shifting preferences to higher calorie, sweeter foods, she said.

Small and some other researchers believe artificial sweeteners interfere with brain chemistry and hormones that regulate appetite and satiety. For millennia, sweet taste signalled the arrival of calories. But that’s no longer the case with artificial sweeteners.

“The sweet taste is no longer signalling energy and so the body adapts,” Small said in an interview with CBC News. “It’s no longer going to release insulin when it senses sweet because sweet now is not such a good predictor of the arrival of energy.”

Susan Swithers, a psychology professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., studies behavioural neuroscience. “Exposure to high-intensity sweeteners could change the way that sweet tastes are processed,” she says.

“A number of epidemiological studies show that people who do consume high intensity sweeteners show differences in metabolic responses, have an increased risk for things like Type 2 diabetes and also have an increased risk for overweight and obesity.”

This week, researchers in France who followed the drinking habits of 66,000 women for 14 years reported that both regular and diet pop increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, but the risk was higher among diet drinkers — 15 per cent higher for consumption of as little as 500 ml per week and 59 per cent higher for those having 1.5 litres per week.

To read the complete article…..Click here