Artificial Sweeteners: Don't. Just don't.

I just realized I haven't written a post about this very important topic, so it's high time I get on that.  I wrote a little about it when I was first discovering Paleo and I posted a grain/sugar-free cinnamon roll muffin recipe.  But that was not enough.  This topic deserves a whole post all its own, because it's very important.  Maybe even more important to me than it ever has been before, because I feel it hits closer to home now than it ever has before.

We are approaching the 1-year anniversary of my Granny's passing.  It's still so strange that she's gone... that she's never met Elliot (well, physically anyway, I know she's with him and all of us in spirit, but it's not the same when you're still a selfish mortal, ya know?), that I haven't gotten to see her watch Harlee become a big brother, to be so proud of what a big boy he's become and what a great brother he is.  They were SO close.  Sometimes I think he loved her more than me!  But I totally get that because, well, it's Granny!  I wrote about my thoughts on the whole experience of her passing in my post about the Cure for Cancer, which I encourage you to read because I feel it's also full of very important information and food for thought.  It's important because I share with you how to prevent cancer.  Pretty big deal, especially if you've ever lost a loved one to cancer and don't want to see it happen to you or anyone else you love.  I lightly touch on the subject of artificial sweeteners in that post, and I shared a few links, but I've decided to go a little bit more in depth here.  Granny died of pancreatic cancer.  She was diabetic, and, as I'm sure most diabetics are guilty of, she turned to artificial sweeteners instead of sugar, since her body couldn't handle sugar when consumed.  But, to put it simply, artificial sweeteners are carcinogens - they cause cancer.  Her pancreas was in a weakened state due to the diabetes, so where is a good place for cancer to strike?  The weakened pancreas.  Why did cancer strike?  In my opinion, I believe her over-consumption of the carcinogenic artificial sweeteners are a major culprit.  Sweet & Lo in her tea, diet sodas on lunch outings, etc.

*Just want to add that Granny didn't start drinking the "Pink Poison" because of diabetes, she actually had been drinking it long before she knew she was diabetic - it was a diet method for her.  She was always overweight in her older age, so obviously that diet method didn't work out too well for her...

I recently learned a friend of mine, whose name I won't mention, has told people that diet soda is okay if you're on a weight-loss or body-fat-loss mission.  I refrained from totally flipping out on him :).  But with information like that going around, I feel more eager to share the REAL facts and get people to understand that, no, diet soda is NOT okay in ANY circumstance, and it WILL NOT help you if you're trying to lose weight or body fat!!  (In fact it can have the opposite affect and make you fat, but I'll be getting to that in a moment.)

What's wrong with diet soda?  It's considered "diet" because it's sugar-free.  Instead of sweetened with sugar, it's sweetened with a chemical additive known as aspartame.

Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious, including seizures and death.

One of the scariest things about aspartame, to me, is the fact that when aspartame is heated, the chemical bonds break down and methyl alcohol is released, and when exposed to temperatures above 96 degrees, methyl alcohol converts to formaldehyde.  What is your body temperature?  98.6?  So you're drinking formaldehyde.  Awesome.

Too much formaldehyde exposure can lead to some pretty serious diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer's Disease.  A research study has also been done on aspartame, linking it to blood cancer:

...the most comprehensive and longest human study — spanning 22 years — that has ever looked at aspartame toxicity. The study evaluates the effect between aspartame intake and cancer, and they found a clear association between aspartame consumption and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and leukemia.

Interestingly enough, the longest study prior to the 22-year study was only four and a half months.  Many studies have been done on aspartame, yes, but none lasted long enough to see long-term effects.  As many of you diet-soda drinkers know, there aren't really any short-term, immediately noticeable health repercussions related to drinking diet soda (or using artificial sweeteners, etc.).  So therefore, it must be safe!

Sure, it's safe, if you don't mind setting yourself up for cancer or Alzheimer's or other terrible illnesses in your old age.  I'm sure your 80-something-year-old self will be thanking you.

But what about weight-loss?  Sugar makes you fat, right?  All those calories?  So artificial, zero-calorie sweeteners seem like a great go-to if you're on a weight- or fat-loss mission, of course!

Not so fast.  Studies have shown that eating artificial sweeteners might hinder your body's ability to estimate calorie intake, causing you to overindulge on food.  In addition, a study from 1986, which included nearly 80,000 women, found that those who used artificial sweeteners were significantly more likely than non-users to gain weight over time, regardless of initial weight.  Another study shows:

The San Antonio Heart Study examined 3,682 adults over a seven- to eight-year period in the 1980s.

When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption... Saccharin use was also associated with eight-year weight gain in 31,940 women from the Nurses' Health Study conducted in the 1970s.

Similar observations have been reported in children.

Need I really say more?  Like it can cause migraines, destroy tooth enamel, lead to depression, increase your risk for osteoporosis, heart attacks or stroke, etc.?

Of course I've read articles that say aspartame and artificial sweeteners are safe.  About how studies done on animals in labs have proven that it doesn't cause cancer.  Probably because humans are the only animals that don't have the proper mechanisms in their cells to process aspartame and simply pee it out - other animals do.  Which is why the lab rats were just fine in the studies.  And of course the FDA wants us to believe it's safe, too - it sure would be a HUGE liability on them if it turns out aspartame DOES cause cancer, and they wouldn't want that, now, would they?

But maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist.

All in all, though, I think it's safe to say we should all avoid this poison food additive and spare our health in our years to come.  I really don't want to lose any more loved ones to cancer.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/11/aspartame-dangers.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/07/aspartame-causes-blood-cancer.aspx
http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20739512_11,00.html