How many times do you drink diet soda a week? How often do you put equal, splenda, or sweet n low in your coffee? If you are consuming any of these food items its imperative you read on! Artificial sweeteners can cause significant health risks. Some of those risks which were discovered in a 1994 Department of Health and Human Services study are as follows: seizures, chest pains, insomnia, weight gain, tremors, vertigo, arthritis, asthma, and migraine headaches. Think to yourself…. In what types of products do we see a lot of artificial sweeteners?
If you answered diet products, you got it! Does anything here seem a bit fishy? Many of our diet products contain artificial sweeteners yet one of the side effects is weight gain. Artificial sweeteners may actually increase appetite including carbohydrate cravings. The reason for this is because artificial sweeteners decrease the production of serotonin in your body. How is this done? Well eating sugar and other foods that are sweet has been shown to increase the natural production of serotonin, thats part of the reason why eating chocolate feels so good and actually can put people into a good mood. Through time excess production of this brain chemical causes a decrease in the overeall natural production of this neurotransmmitter. Think about it the same way a person’s pancreas becomes insulin resistant from ingesting too many sweets too often.
Serotonin is also a neurotransmitter that controls mood and sleep. Mood has a direct effect on our appetite and therefore can cause weight gain and lack of sleep will sabotage any weight-loss since sleep is important recovery time and helps burn calories.
If you thought that was bad, it gets worse!! Are you aware of what formaldehyde is? It is a fluid that is used in embalming. When our bodies enzymes break down certain artificial sweeteners in our small intestine, it breaks down into formaldehyde. That formaldehyde gets broken down into formic acid. That formic acid byproduct that is created can cross the blood brain barrier and is considered a neurotoxin. Don’t believe me? Click HERE for a YouTube interview with Dr. Mercola, a doctor of osteopathy and best selling author on health and wellness.
They have found that large doses of artificial sweeteners in laboratory rats has actually caused neurologic damage! Genotoxicity testing of artificial sweeteners have been disturbing to say the least! Notably aspartame, acesulfame-K, and saccharin.
I know what you are thinking. If all of this is true why isn’t the FDA doing anything about it? Its very simple, what does the world revolve around? MONEY!!! If you walk through the supermarket you will see that billions of dollars are made from products containing artificial sweeteners. I urge you to be careful when making “healthy” choices. If you ever have questions or concerns I’m here to help! I offer everything from an hour’s worth of nutritional counseling to full comprehensive 12-week wellness programs. In conjunction with nutritional counseling I offer pain management and exercise to help fulfill to complete approach to health care – Chemical, emotional, and structural.
Don’t sabatoge your health, learn to read ingredients and know what you are putting into your body!
Filed under: Current Events on Nutrition, New York, Artificial Sweeteners, Brooklyn, Dr. Gordon Kuang, Ingredients to Avoid, New York
