Are artificial sweeteners making you gain weight?
Does she or doesn’t she?
Should she or shouldn’t she is the better question!
Artificially sweetened foods and drinks are often used by women who are trying to cut down on calories, lose weight and manage a healthy lifestyle. They are also used by diabetics or people at high risk for diabetes. Sugar substitutes are typically considered safe but there is always a debate about how much “unnatural sweetener” should be consumed.
Saccharin was the first sweetener to hit the market and it grew in popularity quickly. But it became controversial when questions were raised about its contribution to increasing the risk of cancer.
Sugar substitutes are usually much sweeter than natural sugars – some even several thousand times sweeeter than sugar. But no one will disagree that artificial sweeteners do have a different taste from sugar – and many maintain that they have a lingering after-taste that makes it not worth consuming them.
There are some guidelines from the Federal Drug Administration about maximum recommended daily consumption levels. It is interesting that these levels of consumption would most likely never be included in any woman’s diet. They include daily consumption of:
- Aspartame – no more than 19 cans of diet soda
- Saccharin – 9-12 packets daily
- Acesulfame-K – 30 to 32 cans of diet soft drink
- Sucralose – 6 cans of diet cola
So, we know that artificial sweeteners are relatively safe and can be an alternative to high sugar drinks. And we know that no woman is likely to consume the maximum daily allowed by the FDA as listed above!
But did you know that sugar substitutes can sabotage your diet and your weight-loss strategy?
When sugar substitutes are added to a liquid product that has no other nutritional content such as coffee, soft drinks and water, it actually increases hunger! It doesn’t matter what type of sugar substitute is used. Sugar substitutes in drinks can be a trigger that causes you to eat more.
Conversely, they don’t have the same affect when included in foods rather than liquids.
There are some critics who say that artificial sweeteners actually cause you to eat more real sugars without realizing it. They have also been linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, weight gain, headaches, birth defects, and more.
Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio have recently completed research that provides interesting results. Fowler and her colleagues studied more than 1,500 people between the ages of 25 and 64, looking at whether each consumed regular or diet soft drinks. It was no surprise to find a correlation between the daily consumption of multiple cans of all soft drinks and obesity — which they did.
However, Fowler noted, “What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks; their risk of obesity was even higher” [than that of those drinking regular soft drinks]. In fact, Fowler found that for each can of diet soft drink consumed per day, the risk of obesity went up by 41%.
What do you think?
It’s an interesting dilemma for many women who find diet soft drinks and other types of artificially sweetened products as a way to help manage weight gain and diet.
We’d like to know your views on artificial sweeteners and whether or not you feel they are safe for human consumption. We’d also like to know if you think that including artificially sweetened sodas, drinks, water and other liquids helps with a weight management plan.
Leave us a comment so others can make their own decisions based on what they learn.
Resource: Fowler, S., et al. 2008. Fueling the obesity epidemic? Artificially sweetened beverage use and long-term weight gain. Obesity, 16 (8), 1894–1900. URL: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v16/n8/abs/oby2008284a.html .
