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Artificial Sweeteners Associated With Weight Gain, Heart Problems In Analysis of Data From 37 Studies (npr.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the contrary-to-popular-belief dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The theory behind artificial sweeteners is simple: If you use them instead of sugar, you get the joy of sweet-tasting beverages and foods without the downer of extra calories, potential weight gain and related health issues. In practice, it's not so simple, as a review of the scientific evidence on non-nutritive sweeteners published Monday shows. After looking at two types of scientific research, the authors conclude that there is no solid evidence that sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose help people manage their weight. And observational data suggest that the people who regularly consume these sweeteners are also more likely to develop future health problems, though those studies can't say those problems are caused by the sweeteners.

The review, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, looked at 37 studies. Seven of them were randomized trials, covering about 1,000 people, and the rest were observational studies that tracked the health and habits of almost 406,000 people over time.

12 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. no extra calories? by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Insightful

    eat four times as much.

    1. Re:no extra calories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Studies have shown that your body reacts to these sweeteners as if they were sugar. Meaning your body will release insulin in anticipation of the food spiking your blood sugar.

      Obviously not true. That's so easily measured that it's ridiculous that it would even be a discussion. How long would it take to prove? A day? An hour?

  2. Fat people can't help it? by l810c · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I delivered pizza in college. 2 large Everything pizza's and 4 litres of Diet Coke. Who orders that? Yep, every time. Like the Diet Coke is going to offset 4 slices of Everything pizza.

    I see it our community pool every summer. Some of these kids I don't see for 8 months. They come down each summer a little larger. Kids drink Diet Coke and then eat 4 hotdogs or 2 burgers. I see it every weekend. People eat multiple burgers/hotdogs, chips and fatty dip, strawberries with pound cake and whip cream, all while sipping their slimming Diet Coke.

    1. Re:Fat people can't help it? by aphelion_rock · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I delivered pizza in college. 2 large Everything pizza's and 4 litres of Diet Coke. Who orders that? Yep, every time.

      Notice the same too
      It is no the calorie free sweetener that is making the people fat, it allows them to get stuck into more unhealthy food than they would otherwise.

      I watch the people who pull out the packet of artificial sweeteners to add to their cup of tea/coffee, then when the deserts come around, they have multiple helpings.
      Then wonder why they put on weight

    2. Re:Fat people can't help it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So far, there is no magic trick that lets people live indulgently and remain healthy. And, deep down inside, everyone knows it.

      We can't make fat people thin with artificial sweeteners. We must give them a reason to want to be healthy. If they see no advantage in prioritizing health over immediate gratification, then why the hell should they change a damn thing?

      We all know we are going to die. We all know that it doesn't really make sense to deny ourselves the joys of life just to gain a few more years of being old and miserable at the end of it. There is a degree to which it is rational to sacrifice quantity of life for quality of life. So, if the quality of a healthy life just doesn't beat the quality of an indulgent one, the decision isn't very hard.

    3. Re:Fat people can't help it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unmitigated and misleading BS. Eat less. Eat more variety. Move more. 100% guaranteed going to work. 30 minutes a day of cardiac exercise that gets the heart working is sufficient.

      Everything else is wishful thinking. Losing weight takes effort and commitment. Or carry on being a fatty. Whichever works, I suppose. /ex-fatty. Dropped 60KG through the magic of eating less and moving more. Clearly I'm some sort of scientific marvel. :/

    4. Re:Fat people can't help it? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The "autoleveling" capacity of your body is greatly exaggerated.
      Eat to much: you get fat. Plain and simple.

      However you can influence it by looking at your insulin level, e.g. don't eat stuff that is converted super fast into sugar (or is sugar) and combine it with fat.

      High sugar levels in blood lead to high insulin levels. High insulin levels lead to quick transportation of fat into the fat cells (and conversion of sugar into fat).

      This is why low carb "diets" are so en vogue.

      But before you get all excited: steak with salad still makes you fat if you dumb your typical amount of ketchup on it (check what is in ketchup ... up to 30% sugar), not to mention "american dressing" on salad ... rofl.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:Fat people can't help it? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Diets like 5:2 uses the 2 days of not eating to cleanse the blood from extra sugar - which are consumed the days of not eating alot.
      That is nonsense, basically your whole post is nonsense.
      Insulin removes the sugar from the blood. You would simply die if you have to much sugar in your blood (for various reasons).
      Sugar is stored in the liever. About 45 minutes of energy under exercise is stored in the liver. The blood is only used for transport, not for storage.
      Sugar is as fast as possible converted into fat and stored in cells or as said above stored in the liver.

      Atkinsons diet uses the fact that protein rich food contains less energy to get people to eat the same amount but consume less energy.
      That is nonsense.
      He uses the fact that low carb and low insulin levels prevent transport of fat into the fat cells.

      Can't be so hard to actually read a book about the body works instead of believing and spreading such nonsense.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    6. Re:Fat people can't help it? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you insist on eating a lot of food the body will grow in weight and if you eat less you won't.

      This fundamental misconception is why so many people are struggling to lose weight.

      Energy retained = energy in - energy out

      You can regulate energy in by eating less, although you body will fight you. But what is much harder to regulate is energy out.

      Exercise can burn a few hundred calories if you really go at it every day. Unfortunately your body can save way more than that just by adjusting your rest state to burn less energy. Studies have found that when the body decides to go into "starvation mode" a person can get to the point where they would need to eat so few calories just to maintain weight that they couldn't get enough nutrition and would be extremely lethargic an unable to function in daily life.

      So when you start dieting, you body fights back. Figuring out how to control this response is the key to helping people lose weight. Surgery that reduces the size of the stomach has been shown to work, but it would be better if we could find some chemical way to do it, i.e. a pill or injection.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Confounding by indication? by danceswithtrees · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can anyone say confounding by indication? In the same way that people who get a lot of EKGs are at much higher risk of having a heart attack, people who consume artificial sweetners are at increased risk of obesity.

    No one would suggest that getting an EKG increases your risk of heart attacks but people who get a lot of them are certainly at a much, MUCH higher risk of heart attacks. That is because if you have risk factors and complain of chest pain and shortness of breath to a doctor, she will send you for an EKG. In the same way, people self select to consume artificial sweetners if they are fat.

    1. Re:Confounding by indication? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      when it comes to artificial sweetners and sugars rats are really really bad test subjects as their internal chemistry actually reacts differently. The whole cancer scare back in the 90's around artificial sweetners was a classic example of why they are bad for this.

  4. Re:GREAT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    that is actually false. Insulin is a blood sugar chemical reaction not a reaction to what "might" be coming, it is not influenced by what you taste or think.