There’s no shortage of artificial sweeteners on the market.
Most of them promise to be no-calorie versions of sugar itself – marketed as the perfect weight loss solution. But in a recent study, researchers from the Yale School of Medicine found that sweeteners might not be the weight loss remedy you’re after and could, in fact, be the cause of a number of health concerns.
We delved into this new study to answer the question – are artificial sweeteners really any different to the sweet stuff itself?
When we eat something sweet, our brains are prompted to signal how to digest this food.
This latest research found that it’s the sweet taste of what we eat, and not the calorie value, that subsequently impacts our metabolic response. Senior author and Yale professor of psychiatry, Dana Small, explains, “A calorie is not a calorie. The assumption that more calories trigger greater metabolic and brain response is wrong. Calories are only half of the equation; sweet taste perception is the other half.”
Long ago (AKA way back in caveman times), when we ate something from nature that was sweet, the brain would correlate this sweetness with caloric content. It would then signal the metabolic response necessary to digest this food and use this energy.
With the introduction of artificial sweeteners however, we’ve fooled our brains, as the sweet taste still triggers the same metabolic response that sugar does, but the calories and energy are never received by our body.
Over four different experiments, researchers analysed the body’s response to a range of sweetened beverages, all of which had the same sweetness level, but different calorie values. Through an fMRI scan to read brain signals, as well as metabolic and behavioural tests, researchers observed that drinks with a lower calorie value generated a greater brain and metabolic response. Thus, it was concluded that it’s the sweet taste that triggers the metabolic response, and not calories!
But, when the energy is not received, our bodies are “tricked” and damage is done.
Previous studies have shown the link between artificial sweeteners and weight gain, as when the body expects to receive sugar but doesn’t, it continues to crave the sweet stuff. This fuels food-seeking behaviour, which can make you even hungrier and lead to eating even more!
The way these “fake” sugars tickle your taste buds is just one of the reasons we don’t support the use of artificial sweeteners. How are you supposed to give up sugar if you’re still craving the sweet stuff?!
And, as our nutritionist, Liv, explains, “Artificial sweeteners still spike your insulin. While insulin is an important hormone for our metabolism, you want to avoid having excess insulin in your bloodstream as it’s linked to a plethora of health conditions like weight gain, diabetes, obesity, insulin resistance and glucose intolerance.” In fact, some researchers went so far as to conclude that the use of artificial sweeteners may be directly linked to obesity and diabetes.
Plus, there’s long-standing research proving that artificial sweeteners are linked to impaired thyroid health.
Liv says, “Artificial sweeteners are associated with imbalanced thyroid hormones, and have even been linked to the development or exacerbation of Hashimoto’s disease.” Even Sarah herself has delved into the confusion surrounding artificial sweeteners, explaining that not only can they worsen immune disorders, IBS and Crohn’s, but that eliminating them completely may reverse Hashimoto’s entirely.
All in all, if this new research tells us anything, it’s that we’ve picked the right side of the fence to sit on where artificial sweeteners are concerned! We find that once you give sugar the flick and recalibrate your palate, you won’t feel the need to use them anyway.
“Artificial sweeteners offer no positives, only negatives, so there’s really no reason to include them in your diet,” says Liv. Hear, hear!
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