We fight hard to tip the caloric balance in our favor, pushing and pressing on to achieve our ideal weight loss goals. We make changes to our diets, focusing on ways to eliminate additional calories. Among the most popular ways we do this is by reaching for the artificial sweeteners.
They’re conveniently found atop most restaurant tables in little pink, yellow, or blue packets and are likely just as common in the cupboards or cabinets in your own home. While they add a touch of sweetness without the calories, one might think this is the magic bullet to shed pounds. However, studies actually suggest the opposite, arguing artificial sweetener consumption may contribute to weight gain and prevent your body from shedding unwanted fat.
Among these arguments came from a recently published Purdue University research study in Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism. Many, if not most, artificial sweetener consumption comes in the form of beverages such as “diet” soda. Purdue researchers contest that people who drink artificially sweetened beverages were more likely to gain weight and carry twice the risk of developing precursor health problems that can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
The researchers cite the regular use of artificial sweeteners can trick the body into thinking its receiving fuel in the form of sugar. The metabolic process then adjusts itself and after no true sustenance is received; the body reacts by inciting a sense of craving to consume additional calories otherwise “lost” from drinking the diet soda.
More research is certainly needed to validate these claims and more and more studies are being conducted to support these findings. However, the logic behind these investigations is certainly there. Your body requires energy, and if deceived by artificial sweeteners, is likely to make up for those calories elsewhere such as an extra mid-afternoon snack or squeezing in a bag of chips on the fly.
Others contest those who drink diet sodas may do so to justify a balance between eating poorly. Kind of lesser of two evils principle, that if by eating a few slices of pizza, washing it down with a diet soda is better than doing it with a regular soda.
Either way, according to statistics from the San Antonio Heart Study, a quarter-century-long community-based epidemiologic study conducted at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, also suggest a link between diet soda consumption and obesity.
The results of the study found that on average, for each diet soft drink participants drank per day, they were 65 percent more likely to become overweight during the next seven to eight years, and 41 percent more likely to become obese.
Our love affair with diet sodas and artificial sweeteners is not likely to end soon. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 20 percent of the American population, aged 2 years and older, consumes diet drinks on any given day. While regular soda sales have dipped overall, diet soda has held its ground gaining favor and actually increasing over the past 10 years.
You yourself may be an avid diet soda drinker. If the pounds just don’t seem to be coming off, switching to a healthier beverage alternative such as water or unsweetened tea is at least an option worth considering. Other, more flavorful, alternatives include infusing fruit with water.
For instance, slice some of your favorite fruits and place them in a pitcher of water. The flavors of the fruit will blend with the water, offering a unique taste without the calories. Need a sweetener for your tea? … try a teaspoon of honey instead. This add both a natural sweetness without the huge calorie boost from table sugar or high fructose corn syrup and also provides a few vitamins and minerals that the artificial stuff can’t offer.
Regardless of the studies and what light they may eventually shed on the artificial sweetener debate, the real issue is about making sound decisions based on credible information.
The ongoing studies; whether opinions, observations, or scientifically based, reflect a trend worthy of exploring further to more definitively explain any correlation or link between artificial sweeteners and obesity. Partaking in artificial sweeteners is a personal choice.
If you consume them regularly and weight continues to be an issue, ditching the little pink, yellow, or blue packets to explore other options is certainly not going to hurt.
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