What You Need to Know About Artificial Sweeteners

Since the 1970’s, a new food trend came about with the goal to reduce sugar intake in 
people. This was believed to be a way for people to more easily manage weight, and 
the idea was that less sugar means less calories, and of course therefore less weight 
gain, but is that really the case? After another 30 years of research, science has 
releases many of the findings, and it looks like things aren’t exactly as they appear. The 
next few paragraphs will tell you what you need to know about artificial sweeteners. 


The Gut Flora 

Your gut has a large colony of microorganisms inside of it, and when they eat the things 
that you eat, there can be good and bad effects that you cause. One easy example is 
how acidic foods can tend to cause over populations of unhealthy destructive bacteria, 
and healthy foods can help keep your gut flora alive and kill off the extra harmful 
bacteria, but studies have shown that these sweeteners can confuse or make major 
changes to your gut flora. This could be really bad under most circumstances. After 
many of these studies, a lot of information suggests that the sweeteners don’t even 
have much of an effect on weight loss. 


Kids Have Other Factors 

After studying a cross section of children, researchers have concluded that kids who are 
overweight are generally overweight because of the types of foods that they eat, and 
the types of quantities that are normal for them on a daily basis. Diet sodas are only 
really meant to replace some of the sugar intake, so a child who eats a lot of fast food 
can drink as much diet soda as they want, but it won’t make them lose weight. To lose 
weight, it would have to involve some changes in habits that make overeating easy for 
them to do, and generally, children who overeat tend to be enabled by parents. 
 

Fooling Your Body Might Be Bad

Artificial sweeteners may have unintended consequence for users of the product. When 
your brains tastes something sweet, receptors tell your brain that your body is about to 
receive something to ingest. The brain then tells your pancreas to make insulin to break 
down the sugar so that it can be used in the body. When these sugars are not received 
or broken down, it could cause your body to become confused. In tests of overweight 
people, a lot of them showed signs of sustained insulin production. This could be very 
dangerous for a lot of people because this lays the beginnings of diabetes. That 
happens when your body no longer properly responds to sugars entering your blood. 
