Posted on 07/18/2009 7:54:31 AM PDT by Publius804
Sugar Substitutes: Healthy or Deadly?
"Why do things taste so good? I'm telling you why, NutraSweet is why…" So went the song in a 1990 television advertisement.
The video backed it up with images of family fun, male bonding, and cute kids - all consuming or presumably on the verge of drinking a diet soda. Sweeteners like aspartame would usher in an era of thin and happy.
Barry Sears, the biochemist who came up with the Zone diet, says it's not that simple.
"We now know data from Harvard Medical School in children who consume diet sodas gain weight," Sears told CBN News. "Well, how can that be? There are you know, no calories."
Increase Obesity?
Sears is far from alone in noting that more and more research shows that this empty sweetness makes the body expect food. When it doesn't arrive, you actually get hungrier. He explains in simple terms that the more sugar-free soft drinks you drink, the fatter you become.
And not only may artificial sweeteners - found in a staggering number of grocery products - increase obesity, but many experts say they're bad for you in other ways. That could be demonstrated in your own kitchen by pouring an aspartame-based diet soda into a hot pan.
The heat simulates what your body does when you consume aspartame - breaking it down into toxic formaldehyde. But don't try this as it could give you a migraine.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbn.com ...
I'm *DEEPLY* hurt you didn't mention Calvin and Hobbes!
The cost and shelf life was a *general* comment (my bad) -- I was thinking mainly of hydrogenated oils when I said it, with a small side order of "HFCS is cheaper than cane sugar."
Significant biochemically? Please. Are you aware that there is another commercialized form of HFCS that's only 42% fructose? Is that one better for you than the 55% fructose product? Fructose is cleared by another pathway, as opposed to glucose, but they both reach the Krebs cycle at the same level (3x2 carbon fragments).
I had forgotten about the 42% HFCS -- it's been years since I dealt with it, and that was indirect. I was wondering whether the body used different methods to *split* the sucrose as opposed to the HFCS, and if the different concentrations resulting in the bloodstream might subtly affect any cellular receptors different. By analogy, some people get instant headaches just *thinking* of MSG; if there are individual differences in sensitivity to different sugars, it might explain some of the societal obesity. But that'd be devilishly difficult to prove given timing, portion sizes, etc. etc. Just surmising, not attempting a declarative statement.
Why would this even matter? The Glycemic Index for sucrose and HFCS fall in the 55-60 range. The satiation profiles of both, for the purposes of this discussion, are the same.
See my last paragraph -- not satiety, but metabolism fat storage. Just wondering: you know, as both leptin and ghrelin used to be unknown, and still aren't familiar to the general public, the idea popped into my head there still may be internal workings as yet unstudied. (Nutrisystem is just getting around to popularizing "good carbs" vs. "bad carbs" for example.)
From Martine Perrigue and colleagues at the University of Washington: One question is whether HFCS-sweetened beverages have a different satiety profile from sucrose-sweetened ones. This study examined the relative impact of 16 oz. beverage preloads on motivational ratings and energy intakes at a test meal, using a within-subject design. Participants were 19 men and 18 women, aged 20-30 y.
Thanks -- a good start, but only 37 people, all in their 20's? Alas! the perils of medical studies and small sample sizes! (...also no mention of controls on size/type of breakfast, fitness level of participants, exercise type, duration, time *during* this study, and what happened when the drinks were consumed *instead of* food. Not trying to make excuses, but the real world population has a lot of variables. All the same, I'm glad someone started to look.
That's a polite way of saying Sears is lying. Creating fear by misrepresenting the results of "research", or the research itself, must help him sell his books.
I didn't think he as doing it to inspire fear, but to water down the science for the general public. Without having his book at hand, I can't comment further.
The study found "no differences in the metabolic effects" of HFCS and sucrose in this short-term study, and called for further similar studies of obese individuals and males. ("Similar effects of high fructose corn syrup and sucrose consumption on circulating levels of glucose, leptin, insulin and ghrelin,"
Again, a good start, but it'd be interesting to look at obese people, men, and longer-term effects. (E.g. type 2 diabetes, or "Syndrome X" (as I've heard it called), don't show up right away). Again, I'm glad someone is starting to look. Thanks for letting me know.
Cheers!
Stevia is by for the safest in the world. All natural and you can now buy it without the after taste. The Japanese will not allow any aspartame in their country at all. All their diet drinks use stevia. We can not order from Japan their diet drinks...FDA will not allow it.
aspertame,monosodium glutamate(MSG) these are actually chemicals (neurotransmitters). L-glutamate (a neurotransmitter) glutamate->monosodium glutamate. These chemicals mimic or actually are neurotransmitters. Too many of them are very bad for your brain. It doesn’t take very much to be too much. If you are interested in this, read ‘Exitotoxins: the taste that kills’ by Russell L. Blaylock M.D. (he is a neurosurgeon). Dr. Blaylock explains that MSG is hidden in lots of ingredients of the foods in the stores.... such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein,sodium caseinate,yeast extract,textured protein,autolyzed yeast,and more. the list is long. The important thing to remember is that somebody knows what these chemicals do to us and they put it in our food. And Soy products contain pseudo estrogen, treated just like estrogen in your body. this pseudo estrogen cause breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. Just wait until Codex Alimentarius to kick in. Under Codex Alimentarius, 93% of the worlds population will die (from malnutrition and disease associated with malnutrition) that includes you and me.
Do you also think TFA's, like HFCS, are bad for you too? This thread provides some solid information on why people that demonize trans fats don't understand trans fats.
I was wondering whether the body used different methods to *split* the sucrose as opposed to the HFCS, and if the different concentrations resulting in the bloodstream might subtly affect any cellular receptors different.
Once sucrase hydrolyzes sucrose into glucose and fructose there is no difference in HFCS and sucrose. HFCS is a free sugar...no bonds to break down.
By analogy, some people get instant headaches just *thinking* of MSG; if there are individual differences in sensitivity to different sugars, it might explain some of the societal obesity.
You ever wonder why people who have sensitivities to added glutamate don't have the same sensitivities to natural occurring glutamate? There's no difference between bound glutamate and free glutamate. I don't know why anyone would think that "sensitivity" to sugars would be a cause of obesity in any way. Obesity is cause by people consuming more calories than they burn. Some people always look for something else to blame for why they are the way they are - especially when they see themselves as a victim and cannot manage to take any personal responsibility. May as well just blame obesity on a fat gene.
See my last paragraph -- not satiety, but metabolism fat storage. Just wondering: you know, as both leptin and ghrelin used to be unknown, and still aren't familiar to the general public, the idea popped into my head there still may be internal workings as yet unstudied.
I'm not sure what your concerns are regarding metabolism or what that has to do with HFCS. There was very little research on leptin and ghrelin (at least that I was aware of) when I kept up with this stuff. Since then, there have lots of studies done and none of them, at least that I've seen, show that HFCS and sucrose are absorbed and metabolized differently and that they have a differing effect on leptin and ghrelin.
(Nutrisystem is just getting around to popularizing "good carbs" vs. "bad carbs" for example.)
Good crabs vs. bad carbs? Good grief, is this what the debate has been dumbed down to? They may as well be debating the number of angels on the head of a pin.
Thanks -- a good start, but only 37 people, all in their 20's? Alas! the perils of medical studies and small sample sizes! (...also no mention of controls on size/type of breakfast, fitness level of participants, exercise type, duration, time *during* this study, and what happened when the drinks were consumed *instead of* food. Not trying to make excuses, but the real world population has a lot of variables. All the same, I'm glad someone started to look.
These studies should first be conducted on people with healthy bodies. It's the unhealthy ones that throw in all sorts of other variables and unknowns. There has been a lot more research done on this but I just haven't taken the time to find it. If there had been any shattering results we would have heard about it...probably right here on FR.
I didn't think he as doing it to inspire fear, but to water down the science for the general public. Without having his book at hand, I can't comment further.
Huh? Fear creates alarm and gets the media's attention. How do you think these guys sell books? Sears wrote an article called toxic fat. If the FR search function worked you could find a thread about it here. In the article he comes to all sorts of conclusions without any references. He identifies three fatty acids as causing hormonal activity. That's nonsense and I've even taken the time to email some colleagues who keep up on this and it gave them a good laugh. Sears may be a well educated in biochem and food science but, apparently, money has lured him to the dark side. In an earlier time he'd have been hawking snake oil from a cart with his university credentials placed prominently for all to see.
Again, a good start, but it'd be interesting to look at obese people, men, and longer-term effects. (E.g. type 2 diabetes, or "Syndrome X" (as I've heard it called), don't show up right away). Again, I'm glad someone is starting to look.
Keep an eye on Ho's research regarding carbonyls. I think he believes he's found the smoking gun. If so, it will change everything and we could see a rapid ban on HFCS. He's a first class researcher who is not driven by the dollar.
Health scare artists like Dr. Blaylock have found a whole new medium for terrorizing the public. Just because it's on the internet and some MD has lent his name to it the assumption is that it's legitimate. At some point, given the incredible amount of fear out there, someone needs to ask why we're living longer and healthier lives today if everything we consume is toxic and going to kill us.
some people are living longer. most people are dying in their 50’s and 60’s. We should be living into our 100-110’s by now. Blaylock goes through all the research done by other people in his book. Codex Alimentarius is something different though, under codex the minimum daily nutritional requirements are miniscule compared to our current RDA. All soy in the U.S. is GMO too. That means that all soy in the U.S. contains segments of insecticide/herbicide molecules in their chromosomes. The farmers love GMO soy/corn because they can spray lots of insecticide/herbicide on them and the plants won’t die. Personally I find I get a headache whenever I eat something with monosodium glutamate in it. But it tastes great!
I’ve read that Splenda is a chlorine atom bonded to a sugar molecule. Who knows what that breaks down into inside in your system. I would try stevia or agave, either one is sugar free.
If only those geneticists would get their acts together...ROFL! So you think that if it weren't for the evil food companies filling us with evil ingredients we'd be living to +100? Good grief.
Blaylock goes through all the research done by other people in his book
Then could you explain, or at least cut and paste, how the three components of aspartame are dangerous when bound together but harmless when consumed individually at the same time? Does Blaylock also explain why glutamate from natural sources doesn't cause the same "sensitivities" or nerve damage as glutamate from added sources? Does Blaylock understand that the average person get 10 times more glutamate from natural sources than from added sources? Your body can't tell the difference between glutamate added to a jar of spaghetti sauce or the glutamate found naturally in milk, meats, eggs, vegetables etc.
All soy in the U.S. is GMO too. That means that all soy in the U.S. contains segments of insecticide/herbicide molecules in their chromosomes. The farmers love GMO soy/corn because they can spray lots of insecticide/herbicide on them and the plants won’t die.
You don't understand GM food. Almost every bit of food you consume has been genetically modified in some way. The environment and our bodies are a hell of a lot healthier today because of genetic modification.
Personally I find I get a headache whenever I eat something with monosodium glutamate in it.
You get headaches from eating tomatoes, shrimp, milk, cheese, eggs, corn etc?
It doesn't break down that's why it's noncaloric. Nothing is metabolized, it just passes through. Are you afraid of water, salt and toothpaste too? They all contain chlorine.
I question the correlation as well ... there are also umpteen studies which show that the increase in weight is due to the consumer thinking he's *saving* calories by drinking diet instead of sugar soda and can therefore afford that additional burger, the big, big order of fries, etc. In other words, they EAT more when they drink diet soda.
I don't buy the body-craving issue either.
It was AWESOME. Understand that I will be FReeping the rest of the week with a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone until it’s gone.
I remember back when sugar-free ice cream was first offered at Baskin/Robbins, I took home a quart of Mint Choc Chip and enjoyed a dish -- and then suffered Montezuma's Revenge for a couple of days, oy! I discovered the culprit to be the fact that the sweetener used was Maltitol, NOTORIOUS for this side-effect ... I had a cousin with diabetes discover this dreaded when she munched a pile of sugar-free chocolate-covered pretzels about the same time.
I was avoiding sugar-free ice cream these last years in part due to that, but also because more recently, the labels said the substitute used was Nutrasweet -- while I didn't mind Equal in my iced tea, I always found a bit of an aftertaste in a Diet Pepsi. My father was a soda pop maker all his life, he said that Nutrasweet has a *shelf life*, at a certain point, diet soda won't be sweet any more, I found this to be the case with some other Nutrasweet products, Smuckers sugar-free jams/preserves, even refrigerated, they simply did not hold the sweet.
I LOVE Splenda, no aftertaste at all in anything I've eaten or drunk, in fact, I think it made Diet 7Up taste better. The Splenda Smuckers are wonderful, they taste as sweet as regular jam. I will check my grocery next time, read the labels on the sugar-free ice cream, thanks for letting me know it's out there.
You get headaches from eating tomatoes, shrimp, milk, cheese, eggs, corn etc?
Mase, I remember back a couple of decades ago, the MSG barrage, my mother read something, sorry, I can't quote you, but it said MSG was made from or derived from papaya enzyme, is this accurate? Does my memory serve me, MSG is more or less a food product rather than created chemical something-or-other in a lab?
Ah, okay, I was wondering the science on this -- when the commercials came out, "Tastes like sugar because it's made from sugar", I was curious to know if they'd been able to do something like draw the *sweet* from sugar cane and leave the fibrous plant matter behind.
Glutamate can be made and it occurs naturally. It's what gives a tomato flavor. Glutamate is also produced by your body and you couldn't function without it. Like with anything, if you consume too much of it bad things can happen. People die from drinking too much water.
Sucralose isn't recognized by the body as a carbohydrate so it is not metabolized. Studies have shown that some of it is absorbed but is eliminated as same. Along with aspartame and olestra, sucralose is the most tested ingredient in history. People worry about these artificial sweeteners while eating twice the amount of calories they burn. It's a weird world.
Anybody that’s ever worked fastfood knows why people drink diet soda and still gain weight, because drinking diet soda is ALL they do to improve their health. Most diet soda sales are in drive-thru, involve more sandwiches than sodas, supersized fries and a desert. Saving a few calories on the soda really isn’t going to help much when you eat like that.
Are you referring to patented GMO’s or natural hybrids? Go ahead and eat all the patented GMO’s you want. I’ll stick to the natural hybrids. And I don’t get headaches from natural sources of MSG, isn’t that curious! But the scare tactic doctor explains all that in his book. And I can’t cut and paste from his book it’s copyrighted. Also because the segments of insecticide/pesticide is in every cell of the corn/soy/canola, you get more insecticide/pesticide than from just spraying the stuff on the crop. But be sure to rinse it very well in fluoridated tap water before you cook it, you might get some of the insecticide/pesticide off of it that way. When I refer to GMO corn/soy I am talking about the Monsanto,etc patented variety of corn/soy. Yes only 40% of the corn in the U.S. is known to be genetically engineered (monsanto). It’s what the insecticide/pesticide segments does to your intestinal bacteria that is interesting too.
Please post a link to your source on sucralose not breaking down at all in the human body. Please tell us about it.
Is anybody listening????
codex is part of their evil plan.......
Say bye bye to health foods!!!!!!!
When codex is “harmonized” we will only be able to buy what food they want us to have!!!!
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