Reducing sugar intake has been shown to have many health benefits, but deciding to cut back on sugar is no easy task. After all, it can hide in many different foods and beverages, even the so-called healthy ones. The option that many have chosen, instead, is to swap sugar-filled beverage and food choices with calorie-free, artificially sweetened ones. But are they really as healthy an option, as many have suggested?
The American Heart Association suggests replacing sugary foods and beverages with artificial sweeteners as a way “to limit calories and achieve or maintain a healthy weight.” Non-calorie artificial sweeteners (NAS) are among the most widely used food additives worldwide, regularly consumed by lean and obese individuals alike. NAS consumption is considered safe and beneficial due to their low calorie content; yet, supporting scientific data remain sparse and controversial.
In contrast, there is growing evidence to support the idea that people who consume artificial sweeteners may actually end up consuming relatively more calories. Researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine have discovered that eating low-calorie and artificially-sweetened products, especially when hungry or exhausted, may lead to a higher likelihood of seeking high-calorie alternatives later, due to a newly discovered signal in the brain.
Professor Ivan de Araujo, who led the study, says: “Humans frequently ingesting low-calorie sweet products in a state of hunger or exhaustion may be more likely to ‘relapse’ and choose high-calorie alternatives in the future.”
This study implies that it is hard to fool the brain by providing it with ‘energy-less’ sweet flavours. Our pleasure in consuming sweet solutions is driven, to a great extent, by the amount of energy it provides -- a greater reward in the brain is attributed to sugars compared to artificial sweeteners.
Researchers have identified a specific physiological brain signal that is critical for determining choice between sugars and sweeteners. This signal regulates dopamine—a chemical necessary for reward-signalling in the brain. The signal arises only when sugar is broken down into a form where it is usable as fuel for cells of the body to function. Essentially, dopamine acts as a reward-signalling chemical, by leaving us with feelings of fullness and satisfaction.
Artificial sweeteners do not satisfy the appetite with calories. Foods, such as a diet soda, might quench your thirst and your immediate craving for something sweet; but they will not reduce your appetite. Artificial sweeteners trick the body into thinking it is about to receive more calories than it actually does, causing people to then compensate for lack of being sated with more food later in the day.
Furthermore, as Dr David Ludwig from the Harvard School of Public Health says, there is also evidence to suggest that frequent use of artificial sweeteners can limit tolerance for more complex tastes. Artificial sweeteners are 200 to 600 times sweeter than sugar. Increased consumption of such sugars leads to a higher tolerance for sweetness which, in turn, means that your body begins to crave for more of these hyper-sweet foods. The problem starts when healthy foods, like whole-grain products, fruits and vegetables, lose their lustre and even naturally sweet foods do not taste nearly as sweet, nor satisfying, to people who regularly consume artificially-sweetened foods.
Another group of researchers, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the Microbiome & Cancer Division in Germany, have found that artificial sweeteners may contribute to obesity and diabetes because it disrupts the gut micro-biome, where a collection of bacteria helps digest food, absorbs nutrients and maintains the inner lining of the digestive system.
Analysing the bacterial balance of the digestive system in mice, the study found that artificial sweeteners disrupted this balance by increasing blood sugar and boosting the growth of a certain gut bacteria that triggers fat storage. Since there are no calories in artificial sugars, they pass directly into the gut thereby affecting the millions of microbes that live there.
Changes in the composition of this micro-biome can influence the risk the obesity, affect the immune system and also affect how valuable nutrients are absorbed in the body. Hence, while the findings of this study are preliminary, the results are significant enough to interest many scientists who are keen to understand the effect of artificial sweeteners on the human gut micro-biome.
The debate over the health benefits of artificial sweeteners continues within the scientific community; but readers should exercise caution when opting for such alternatives, as new research has progressively shown how detrimental they can be in the long term.
