By Jordan Roberts, Staff Reporter.
There are few topics in nutrition that have been met with as much contention as the sweetener vs.sugar debate. NAS, or non-caloric/nutritive artificial sweeteners, have been used in a variety of products from beverages to toothpaste. Artificial sweeteners have been claimed to help with weight loss and blood sugar control because of their low calorie count and low glycemic index response compared to their sugar counterpart.
According to the American Diabetes Association,“non nutritive sweeteners may help reduce caloric intake, yield a few pounds of weight loss, and help prevent unwanted weight gain.” Popular sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine and sucralose appear to have a nominal effect on appetite for adults.
“I think people who have diabetes would truly have a propensity to use [artificial sweeteners] thinking, ‘Ah,I’m not having sugar. I’m having something that’s not affecting me,’ but I think it is,” says Dr. James Finch, a diagnostic radiologist at McLaren Bay Region.
Finch says he’s read studies that indicate “that those who drink one diet soda a day gain more weight than those who drink water; if you drink two, those people will gain more weight than those who drink just one.”
The National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Institute of Health state that sweeteners have an adverse effect on weight control and can influence an increase in an adult’s body mass index.
“Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain. The San Antonio Heart Study examined 3,682 adults over a seven to eight year period in the 1980s,” states NCBI.
The study’s results showed that 47 percent of the participants experienced an increase in their BMI. The study determined that consuming 21 or more artificially sweetened beverages per week “was associated with almost-doubled risk of obesity among normal weight individuals,” compared to those that did not consume artificially sweetened beverages.
While the ADA claims that “using non-nutritive sweeteners does not appear to affect blood glucose or lipids in adults with diabetes,” the NCBI states, “a sweet taste induces an insulin response, which causes blood sugar to be stored in tissues.”
Finch likens this response to the possibility of over-eating. “Your body somehow secretes insulin based on that, thinking it’s getting sugar – but doesn’t. So maybe your blood sugar goes down, therefore your body says,‘I need food,’ in response to a non-calorie sweetness.”
Another issue with sweeteners is that they may produce stronger cravings for sweets than sugar. The U.S. National Library of Medicine states that “artificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence.”
Finch says that consuming artificial sweeteners can create a craving for salty foods in addition to sugar. “I think they make me crave snack foods… like the salt and sweet thing. [If] I drink a diet Pepsi, my palette tastes sweet. My brain expects sweet and calories but it doesn’t get them.”
The NLM indicates that repeated consumption will train a person’s palette for a flavor preference and that the more a person eats a particular flavor, especially a delicious one, the more they want the flavor to intensify.
This becomes a problem when sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose are 200 to 600 times sweeter than sugar.
The NLM makes an interesting point that instead of using a sugar substitute that tastes sweeter than sugar, “unsweetening the world’s diet may be the key to reversing obesity,” and decreasing sugar cravings.
