Many people opt for artificial sweeteners in order to avoid the extra calories in sugar, but they may not recognize the negative effects fake sugar has on the body.
Society's love of sweets borders on obsession, but Americans are also growing more and more weight-conscious. This type of mentality has led to the use of artificial sweeteners. Many who try to lose weight think restricting calories is the way to go. Think again.
According to Associate Professor of Nutrition Janine Baer and www.fda.gov, alternative (artificial/non-nutritive) sweeteners offer either non-caloric or very low calorie sugar substitutes. These substitutes were originally intended for people with diabetes and later extended for those trying to manage their weight.
Some commonly used FDA-approved alternative sweeteners include saccharin, aspartame and sucralose. The safety of these sweeteners is determined by the FDA and is indicated by an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) guideline. ADIs are based on studies of laboratory animals and for humans, are set at a level 100 times less than the level at which no harmful effects were noted in animals.
Saccharin is the oldest low-calorie sweetener discovered in 1879 by researchers at JohnsHopkins University. The packaging that saccharin comes in says that the product can cause cancer. The FDA has set the ADI for saccharin at 5mg/kg body weight per day. For a 150 lb adult, this equates to approximately three 12-oz diet soft drinks or seven packets of the pink sweetener.
Sucralose is derived from sugar through a patented, multi-step process that selectively substitutes three chlorine atoms for three hydrogen-oxygen groups in the sugar molecule. Sucralose ADI for an adult is 5 mg/kg/day, so recommendations for the yellow sweetener are close to those of saccharin.
Aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar and has 92 official side effects. An aspartame ADI for an adult is 50mg/kg/day. This is equivalent to about 14 cans of diet soft drinks or about 80 packets of the blue sweetener.
John Strano, a recent graduate from the University of Dayton gave a speech on the negative effects of artificial sugar when he was a residential coordinator.
"If you look at a list of ingredients and there are about half that you can't pronounce, the product is usually not worth eating," he said.
Alternative sugar is chemically processed and therefore harder for the human body to digest. Add that to the risk of cancer for those with high consumption levels of diet soft drinks or no-sugar beverages and it may not be a wise choice.
While artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose are used in many food products people buy today, there are still safer and healthier alternatives to keep life sweet. Strano suggests using raw sugar or honey to sweeten products. Some other choices are using brown rice syrup, natural concentrated fruit sweetener, date sugar, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, fruit juice sweeteners, glucose, maple syrup and stevia.
Stevia is a South American shrub that has been used for centuries in Prague and Brazil and is now becoming very popular in the U.S. It contains fewer calories than other common sweeteners and is a hundred times sweeter than regular sugar. This particular sweetener comes in powder, tablets or liquid.
While excess sugar intake leads to tooth decay and weight gain, as well as conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, there are correlations between artificial sugar causing cancer and potentially leading to weight gain in ongoing studies.
As detrimental as sugar can be in one's diet, artificial sweeteners may not be the solution. When intaking something sweet but not getting the calorie intake of a real sugar, the brain chemistry changes in a way, which makes ingesters more likely to see weight gain than lose it, according to abcnews.com.
So what is more important: cutting calories with artificial sweeteners or getting more calories with real sugar? Strano has one idea.
"People must keep their caloric intake at a low level regardless," he said. "But real sugar is less harmful."
1st October 2009
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