Artificial Sweetners cause weight gain

[SearchingforPeace]

How Artificial Sweeteners May Cause Us to Eat More - Scientific American

A vast body of research suggests that sugar substitutes, despite having far fewer calories than sugar itself, can wreak various forms of metabolic havoc such as upping diabetes risk and—perhaps paradoxically—causing weight gain in the long term. A new study published Tuesday in Cell Metabolism suggests that artificial sweeteners mimic a starvation state in the brain, causing some organisms to seek energy by eating more food.

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By monitoring the expression and effects of compounds involved in appetite and energy regulation—including various enzymes and neurotransmitters—Neely and his colleagues were able to identify a neural network in the brain that appears responsible for the hunger-inducing effects of artificial sweeteners. In short, the compounds interfere with an evolutionarily ancient interplay between insulin, taste neurons and the brain’s reward circuitry that normally drives us to seek out life-sustaining food when nutrients are scarce. “We found that inside the brain's reward centers sweet sensation is integrated with energy content,” Neely was quoted as saying separately in a press release. “When sweetness versus energy is out of balance for a period of time, the brain recalibrates and increases total calories consumed.” In other words, when the brain detects sweetness in the absence of actual caloric energy, it compensates by increasing the palatability of sugar, driving increased food consumption. “The pathway we discovered is part of a starvation response that actually makes nutritious food taste better when you are starving,” Neely said in the press release.

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Interesting....

 

[Norrsken]

I use xylitol. No issues here at all, in fact, I actually lost weight using it in my daily coffee. Read it in a book about this woman who used to binge eat and was almost dying from liver failure and she turned her entire life around by eating more real food, though she realizes that she still misses that sweet taste that sugar used to provide. She also uses stevia, which I want to try next!