Tri-Beta Club
As you may know, there is much controversy over the effects of artificial sugars on your body. For example, the University of Texas performed a study that has shown that there is a 41% increase in the risk of obesity for every diet soda consumed daily.
Don’t let the statistics fool you, though, because a study of this kind does not prove that drinking diet soda causes obesity. It is more likely that something related to drinking diet soda is linked to obesity. Studies like these don’t account for the fact that the people who are drinking diet soda may be consuming two juicy Big Macs at the same time.
Sucralose, the sweetener for Splenda, is synthesized by chlorinating sucrose (regular table sugar). Sucralose tastes about 600 times sweeter than regular sugar because of the way the chlorinated molecule binds to our taste receptors. After sucralose is ingested, about 85% of it is unabsorbed and passes through the body unchanged in the stool. The other 15% is absorbed and urinated out within 24 hours. No research has supported that sucralose increases the risk of any diseases, including cancer.
However, another artificial sweetener, aspartame (phenylalanine), has more complaints to the FDA for adverse reactions than any other food additive. The top three reactions are headaches, dizziness, and change of mood. This has stirred a buzz in the media about aspartame. What exactly does aspartame do to your body, after you consume what tases 200 times sweeter than regular sugar?
Once in the body, aspartame breaks down into methanol, which gets converted to formaldehyde, and ultimately turns into formic acid. Since formic acid leaves the body quickly, there is little potential for any harm. Most fruit juices actually have more methanol than that obtained from the breakdown of aspartame. In “Neurotoxicity Research,” the April 2013 publication, researchers showed that oxidative stress and inflammation increased in the brain of rats administered with aspartame. In humans, oxidative stress is thought to be involved in the development of cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Research that shows that antioxidants combat this oxidative stress is controversial. In a certain study, it was found out that rats given aspartame similar to what people might get drinking six to seven cans of diet beverages a day developed leukemia and lymphomas, and had an increased risk of developing cancers and brain tumors. You may be wondering, then, why doctors advise people to switch to an alternative sugar substitute like sucralose. They advise people to consume artificial sweeteners often because they are diabetic and high quantities of sugar can kill them in a matter of hours.
The moral of the story is, have everything in moderation! Most doctors will agree that people just eat too much sugar, and consuming a replacement in excess opens a window of potential side effects.
What’s Been Said…