Panama Naturopath.com

Maintaining a reasonable weight as we get older becomes a little harder as we fight that ‘middle-age spread’, I love the expression ‘battle of the bulge’. Whatever it is called, now that we are older it takes more effort to keep our weight stable. Many people are turning to the lure of artificial sweeteners and the promise of no-calorie sweetness. Have your cake and eat it, so to speak.

There is an estimated 4,000 food and drink products sweetened with artificial sweeteners!! The manufacturers claim that the products have been thoroughly tested. So why would you want to consume something called ‘artificial’? Numerous studies in both animals and humans have confirmed some very ironic facts about artificial sweeteners –

a)      increased in appetite

b)      cravings for sweet and fatty foods

c)      recent research has revealed artificial sweeteners block our feeling of fullness

Not knowing when to stop eating, increased appetite, and cravings for sweet and fatty foods!!! This is not I am sure what you had in mind when you first started taking artificial sweeteners.

A study of 78,694 women, by the American Cancer Society determined that a significantly higher percentage of artificial sweetener users gained weight than non-users. Animals fed these sweeteners become considerably fatter compared to those not fed with artificial sweeteners.

Artificial sweeteners can be very addictive making them very difficult for some people to give up these chemicals. Sweeteners become even more addictive when consumed with caffeine, found in cokes, coffee or tea, even de-caf contains some caffeine. All of this is putting considerable strain on the body, using up resources that would otherwise be put to better use. In the case of artificial sweeteners, to render them harmless puts an enormous strain on the liver and other detoxification organs. The body starts to struggle and all the systems are put under stress.

Amazingly, artificial sweeteners accounts for 75% of all non-drug complaints received by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in the USA. The list of complaints is long, here is a list of just a few side-effects you could experience with continual use – headaches, tiredness, memory loss, mood swings, rashes, sleep problems, menstrual changes, weight gain, fluid retention, mild depression, anxiety attacks, stomach problems, dizziness and cancer. These sweeteners have been a huge success in terms of profit for the pharmaceutical companies that produce them. Used in 4,000 different products! You could be consuming more than you realized. Read all labels carefully. The Americans have increased their yearly intake of low-calorie sweeteners to 24 pounds (11kilos)! How much are you consuming without realizing?

Splenda, we have been told, is the artificial sweetener like no other artificial sweetener, different from all the others that have been on the market for some time now. I am sure we have read or heard the claims, Splenda is the perfect sugar substitute, it is certainly as sweet as sugar, but with no calories and most importantly no side-effects, or long-term health damage! I am not sure quite how they would know the last couple statements, as they have only done relatively short term tests. How many times have we heard this in the past about the latest artificial sweetener? As the ‘low-carb’ craze leaves the scene, the “low–sugar” or “sugar–free” craze enters, hundreds of new foods will contain Splenda as a sugar substitute.

However, some experts argue that Splenda is unsafe, the latest in a succession of artificial sweeteners that claim at first to be safe, only later to be proven to be full of side-effects. Some authorities say that Splenda has more in common with DDT than with food. According to the New York Times, by the end of this summer 11% of the food items on supermarket shelves will be labelled “reduced sugar” — most of those targeted at kids and their health-conscious mothers! Sales in granulated sugar have dropped four percent in the past six months. What’s behind this trend? Splenda is. You could say if the trend for sugar has dropped that is a good thing, it would be if the figures for sugar were dropping for nutritious foods, like fresh fruit. Not so. Sugar has been dropped for processed foods full of chemicals.

Products featuring Splenda have been pushed as “natural” because even the FDA repeated information claiming sucralose is made from sugar. This claim is strongly disputed by the Sugar Association, which is suing Splenda’s manufacturer for this claim. Splenda is the trade name for sucralose, a synthetic compound stumbled upon in 1976 by scientists in Britain looking for a new pesticide formulation. It is true that the Splenda molecule is comprised of sucrose (sugar) — except that three of the hydroxyl groups in the molecule have been replaced by three chlorine atoms. Some independent researchers have likened splender as having more in common with pesticides. Chemistry wise, it’s more characteristic of a chlorocarbon, and most pesticides are chlorocarbons.

So, is Splenda safe in the long run? The reality is no one knows yet. There are no long-term studies of the side-effects of Splenda in humans! If you are taking splenda you are part of the long term experiment (like the others that have gone before). The manufacturer’s own short-term studies showed that sucralose caused shrunken thymus glands and enlarged livers and kidneys in rodents. But in this case, the FDA decided that because these studies weren’t based on human test subjects, they were not conclusive?! Of-course, there are countless examples of foods and drugs that have proved dangerous to humans that were first found to be dangerous to laboratory rats, and then again, countless others that have not.

Observational evidence shows that there are side-effects with Splenda, including skin rashes/flushing, panic-like agitation, dizziness and numbness, diarrhea, muscle aches and pains, headaches, intestinal cramping, bladder issues, and stomach pain.

We have been down this path before with aspartame, the main ingredient in Equal and NutraSweet. Almost all of the independent research into aspartame found dangerous side-effects in rodents. The FDA chose not to take these findings into account when it approved aspartame for public use! Over the course of 15 years, those same side-effects increasingly appeared in humans. Makes you wonder why tests are carried out if no-one takes them into consideration!

The trouble is most people are ingesting a combination of artificial sweeteners, pesticides, fungicides, colourings, flavouring, additives and preservatives, all day and everyday through many different processed products, this is a huge cocktail? What is this combination doing to us in the long run? You never really know until you get sick. Just because you don’t feel any symptoms this doesn’t mean it’s not doing you any harm. Right now, it’s anyone’s guess what portion of the population is being exposed to the dangers of Splenda or already suffering from Splenda side-effects, but haven’t put two and two together yet. Until an independent, unbiased research group conducts long-term studies on humans, how can we be certain? However, Splenda is set to invade many products on our shelves for some years to come. Many people are going to consume large amounts of the stuff, including children, which is a worry.

Aside from Splenda, the most popular artificial sweeteners are aspartame and saccharin. Foods with these additives are marketed to women as low–fat, low–sugar, and low–calorie. Diet programs sell low–calorie foods that trade real nutrients for artificial ingredients, including sugar substitutes. In reality good nutrition will help you to lose weight and stay healthy in the long run.

Aspartame, the main ingredient in Equal and NutraSweet, is responsible for the most serious cases of poisoning, because the body actually digests it. Recent studies in Europe show that aspartame use can result in an accumulation of formaldehyde in the brain, which can damage your central nervous system and immune system and cause genetic trauma. The FDA admits this is true, but claims the amount is low enough in most that it shouldn’t raise concern. Notice the word is shouldn’t not couldn’t. Any amount of formaldehyde in our brains is too much. Formaldehyde is in our environment and we are already taking more than is ideal, we don’t then need to voluntarily consume it. Aspartame has had the most complaints of any food additive available to the public. It’s been linked with MS, lupus, fibromyalgia and other central nervous disorders – these are not just simple complaints. Possible side-effects of aspartame include headaches, migraines, panic attacks, dizziness, irritability, nausea, intestinal discomfort, skin rash, and nervousness. Some researchers have linked aspartame with depression and manic episodes. It may also contribute to male infertility.

Saccharine, was the first widely used artificial sweetener, not noticed much these days. Many years ago I briefly tasted saccharine it as a friend of mine used it, to me it tasted really terrible. Better-tasting NutraSweet took its place in almost every diet product, but saccharin is still an ingredient in some prepared foods, gum, and over-the-counter medicines. Remember those carcinogen warnings on the side of products that contained saccharin? They no longer appear because industry testing showed that saccharin only caused bladder cancer in rats. Most researchers agree that in sufficient doses, saccharin is carcinogenic (causes cancer) in humans. The question is how do you know how much artificial sweeteners your individual body can tolerate?

Whatever way you look at it, artificial sweeteners are toxins not food. They are never a good idea for anyone but especially if you are pregnant, or a children or teenager — despite the reduced sugar content — because of possible irreversible cell damage. If you are serious about your health, have a chronic disease, have any aches and pains, want to slow down aging, then artificial sweeteners have no place in your diet.

So why does consuming artificial sweeteners set up hunger and cravings for sweet and/or fatty foods. Basically, artificial sweeteners confuse our brains. We take something sweet and enzymes in our mouth triggered by our taste buds alert the body, which sets off a sequence of events to deal with it, priming our insulin cell receptors for the surge, and of-course this doesn’t happen. Soon you will end up craving carbohydrates and/or fats. Experiment after experiment show people on artificial sweeteners to eat more and put on weight eventually or find it hard to lose weight. It all comes down to the brain’s perception, which can get ‘thrown off’ whenever artificial ingredients are substituted for real foods, that contain nutrients as opposed to chemicals that harm the body and brain.

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