Artificial Sugar Sabotages Weight Loss Efforts: Yale Study

by | Sep 30, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Sugars | 0 comments

Sweetener Think you’re saving yourself extra calories by going the artificial sweetener route? New research suggests you’re just setting yourself up to fail.

That’s the conclusion of a new study out of Yale University which found that eating low-calorie sweetened products may actually sabotage efforts to reduce calorie intake, by leading people to reach for higher calorie alternatives later on.

Or, as scientists put it, despite good intentions, the brain can’t be fooled by artificial sweeteners.

That’s because in their animal research, scientists observed that a specific physiological signal that regulates dopamine levels — the feel-good chemical that works with the reward center in the brain — only arose when sugar was broken down into a form that could be used as fuel and energy for the body.

For the study, scientists performed behavioral testing involving sweeteners and sugars and measured chemical responses in the brain circuit.

“According to the data, when we apply substances that interfere with a critical step of the ‘sugar-to-energy pathway’, the interest of the animals in consuming artificial sweetener decreases significantly, along with important reductions in brain dopamine levels,” explained lead author Ivan de Araujo in the Journal of Physiology.

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Soda drinks may make children more aggressive and distracted

by | Aug 20, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Sugars | 0 comments

Softdrinks Soft drinks may cause young children to become aggressive and develop attention problems, according to a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Researchers from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, the University of Vermont and Harvard School of Public Health, studied around 3,000 children aged 5.

All children were enrolled in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study – a cohort study that follows mothers and children from 20 large cities in the US.

The researchers asked the mothers of the children to report their child’s soft drink consumption. Their child’s behavior in the 2 months prior to the study was reported through a “Child Behavior Checklist.”

Just over 40% of the children consumed a minimum of one serving of soft drinks a day, while 4% consumed four or more soft drinks a day.

The study results found that any level of soft drink consumption was linked to higher levels of aggressive behavior, as well as more attention and withdrawal problems.

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Sugary Drinks Tied to Preschoolers’ Extra Pounds

by | Aug 8, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Sugars | 0 comments

Drink Preschool children who regularly have sugary drinks tend to pack on more pounds than other youngsters, a large study of U.S. children suggests.

Researchers found that among the 2- to 5-year-olds they followed, those who routinely had sugar-sweetened drinks at age 5 were 43 percent more likely to beobese than their peers who rarely had those drinks.

In addition, 2-year-olds who downed at least one sugary drink a day gained moreweight over the next few years than their peers.

The results, reported online Aug. 5 and in the September print issue of the journalPediatrics, add to evidence tying sugar-laden drinks to excess pounds in older kids. And although the study cannot prove it’s the beverages causing the added weight, experts said parents should opt for water and milk to quench preschoolers’ thirst.

“We can’t say for sure that cutting out sugar-sweetened beverages would prevent excess weight gain,” said lead researcher Dr. Mark DeBoer, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

“[But] there are healthy sources of calories, and there are less healthy sources,” he said. “Sugar-sweetened beverages don’t have other nutritional benefits.”

Water, on the hand, is a sugar-free way for kids to hydrate. “And milk,” DeBoer said, “has vitamin D, protein and calcium.” Plus, he added, the protein and fat in milk make young children feel full, so they may eat less than they do when their diets are filled with sugary — but less satisfying — drinks.

Plenty of factors influence childhood obesity, including genes, overall diet andphysical activity, said Dr. Anisha Patel, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Why Are We So Addicted To Sugar?

by | Jul 30, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Sugars | 0 comments

Candies From childhood memories of penny sweets to office chocolate binging and coffee mornings laden with home-baked cakes, sugar is an inextricable part of our lives. But recent studies have shown that this addictive substance isn’t actually made of all things nice and could be poisoning us. So why can’t we stop eating it?

Rich Cohen has examined our love affair with sugar by examining America’s relationship with the sweet stuff in “Sugar Love” in the August issue of National Geographic, from which the following excerpt and images are taken.

Candy is dandy, particularly to Americans, who spent $32 billion on sweets in 2011; per capita consumption was 25 pounds. Formerly a luxury item for the rich, candy became affordable with the decline of sugar prices and rise of mass production in the 19th century. The word itself comes from qandi: Arabic for a sugar confection.” – Rich Cohen

Recently the American Heart Association added its voice to the warnings against too much added sugar in the diet. But its rationale is that sugar provides calories with no nutritional benefit. According to Johnson and his colleagues, this misses the point. Excessive sugar isn’t just empty calories; it’s toxic.

“It has nothing to do with its calories,” says endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco. “Sugar is a poison by itself when consumed at high doses.”

Things go better with bubbles—or so it was thought by spa-goers, who often drank sparkling mineral water as part of the cure for what ailed them. The 18th-century discovery that carbon dioxide put the fizz in fizzy water led to systems for producing soda water, then to sweet drinks like root beer, ginger ale, and cola. Today’s 12-ounce soda typically contains around ten teaspoons of sugar.” – Rich Cohen

We know that eating excess amounts of sugar is bad for us. The list of ailments associated with sugar intake is endless and we’re taught from a young age that it rots the teeth, causes weight gain, lethargy, diabetes and heart problems, yet it’s never stopped me from reaching for the toffee or polishing off a bag of fruit gums in record time.

Scientists have claimed that we’re primed to crave sugar on an instinctive level as it is connected to our basic desire for survival, meaning that our sense of taste has evolved to desire the molecules necessary to live like salt, fat and sugar.

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Could Artificial Sweeteners Cause Weight Gain?

by | Jul 25, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners | 0 comments

Artificial Sweetener Artificial sweeteners appear to disturb the body’s ability to count calories and, as a result, diet foods and drinks may wind up encouraging weight gain rather than weight loss, an expert contends.

These sweeteners may also increase the risk of health problems like heart diseaseand diabetes, some evidence suggests.

In an opinion piece published July 10 in the journal Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, Susan Swithers, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., rounded up recent research on artificial sweeteners.

Commonly used sweeteners include sucralose, aspartame and saccharin, among others.

Swithers has been studying the effects of artificial sweeteners on rats, but the journal asked her to look at evidence of health effects in humans too.

Swithers said studies following people who regularly consume diet soft drinks over time have found that those people are at higher risk for weight gain and obesity than people who don’t drink sodas at all.

Compared to people who avoid diet or regular soft drinks, diet soda drinkers also appear to have elevated risks for type 2 diabetes, heart disease and metabolic syndrome — a group of symptoms that puts people at increased risk for those conditions.

What’s more, Swithers said, the risks for these health effects seem to be similar in people who drink diet sodas compared to those who drink regular sodas, suggesting that there isn’t much benefit in switching.

Some of those studies aren’t conclusive, however, because they can’t rule out the possibility that people were drinking diet sodas because they were gaining weight, not the other way around — a problem called reverse causality.

One study of soda-drinking teens found that those assigned to swap regular soda for one diet soda every day gained less weight over the course of 18 months than those who kept drinking sugar-sweetened soda. The study didn’t look at what might happen if teens were asked to drink water instead of sweetened beverages, however.

Not everyone agrees with Swithers’s assessment of the research.

“The views in this opinion piece I found to be biased and speculative,” said Theresa Hedrick, nutrition and scientific affairs specialist for the Calorie Control Council, a lobbying group for the manufacturers of artificial sweeteners. “She’s presented only the research that supports her opinion and ignored the large body of scientific research that demonstrates the safety and benefits of low-calorie sweeteners.”

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The Sweet Side Of Health – The Benefits of Natural Sweeteners

by | Apr 1, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Diabetes, Diet, Food Choices, Natural food, Nutrition, Obesity, Sugars | 0 comments

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Here’s a short but informative article by Chris Haro found on the Kwik Med site where he talks about artificial  sweeteners and how that they are simply yellow, blue and pink packets of chemicals.

There’s a link to the full article at the bottom of this page and I have left in just the natural sweeteners that he has tried for himself to great effect. Do take the time and read his article.

Natural Sweeteners to Consider

Local Honey

Honey is simply one of the best natural sweeteners you can use. Not only does it not raise your blood sugars like other sugars do, it is a whole food that comes from plant nectar. Honey contains many health benefits. It has vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin A, B2, Vitamin C, Biotin (Vitamin H) and rutine. It also has calcium, magnesium potassium, iron iodine, copper and zinc.

Honey is also a natural “healing” food. Honey has been used as an antiseptic, antimicrobial, and antibiotic. Many will also use local honey to help with allergies.

Agave Nectar

Agave Nectar is another plant-based natural sweetener derived from the plant used to make tequila! It is very sweet and can be used in both your drinks and food. Native Americans have been using agave for many years as both a sweetener and healing agent. In terms of the glycemic index, Agave nectar is extremely lower than other sugars. Sucrose for instance will come in on the GI as an 83, high fructose corn syrup comes in at 89, while the agave nectar comes in at 27! Agave is also known to have health benefits such as having inulin, which can be beneficial in weight loss, decrease appetite and keep blood sugars at bay. Agave nectar also has immune system health benefits, and the Aztecs used the agave as an antibacterial agent.

Other great natural sweeteners to consider are raw maple syrup, date sugar, coconut palm sugar and Stevia, which is becoming a more and more popular in the natural health community.

If you are wanting to keep the bad sugars away, yet not throw down chemicals in your body, give these natural sweeteners a try. They can all be added in many recipes, and are wonderfully useful not just for your taste buds, but also for health.

Link to the article