Should Artificial Sweeteners Be a Concern for My Digestion?

Pick your poison: the white one (sugar), the yellow one (Splenda - sucralose), the pink one (Sweet n Low - saccharin), the blue one (Equal - aspartame)...or do you think your better off with   What does your gut (literally) say?  Is zero calories or "natural" more important to you?  What are sweeteners doing to you?  What are your alternatives?

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The use of artificial sweeteners in drinks and food has risen over the past decade. This should be cause for concern, and we need to be educated.Should Artificial Sweeteners be a Concern for My Digestion? is the primary question. These sweeteners can cause gut bacteria to create glucose intolerance, which in turn can lead to metabolic disease. Both glucose intolerance and metabolic disease are significant markers for obesity and diabetes.

Though Artificial Sweeteners have been long promoted as aids to weight loss and diabetes prevention, they are not beneficial to your physical health. Artificial sweeteners may actually affect the composition and function of your gut’s microorganisms. This happens because the artificial sweetener begins disturbing the gut’s microorganism balance and hastening metabolic changes.

SHOULD ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS BE A CONCERN FOR MY DIGESTION?

Researchers have long puzzled over why non-caloric artificial sweeteners do not seem to assist in weight loss and many studies suggest they may even have an opposite effect.  One study by the department of immunology at Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, shows that artificial sweeteners, even though sugar-free, have a direct effect on the body’s ability to utilize glucose. This is scary because Glucose intolerance has generally thought to occur when the body cannot cope with large amounts of sugar. This study shows the same harmful results from artificial sweeteners.

The Personalized Nutrition Project completed the largest human trial to date to look at the connection between nutrition and microbiota. They uncovered a significant association linking self-reported consumption of artificial sweeteners with individual configurations of gut bacteria and the propensity for glucose intolerance. They next conducted a controlled experiment, asking a group of volunteers who did not generally eat or drink artificially sweetened foods to consume them for a week and then undergo tests of their glucose levels as well as their gut microbiota composition. The findings showed that many had begun to develop glucose intolerance after one week of artificial-sweetener consumption. Therefore it is believed that certain bacteria in the guts of those who developed glucose intolerance reacted to the chemical sweeteners by secreting substances that then provoked an inflammatory response similar to sugar overdose, promoting changes in the body’s ability to utilize sugar.

SHOULD ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS BE A CONCERN FOR MY DIGESTION?

Our individual mix of gut bacteria is a huge factor in determining how the food we eat affects us. If we are eating a lot of artificial sweeteners, colors, and ingredients we are altering our gut bacteria mix. When these organisms are altered, it affects other systems throughout our bodies, which in turn creates the tendencies to develop disorders that they were designed to prevent. This is why it is important to seek out whole food supplements and clean eating nutrition plans.

When you provide your body with real foods, whole food nutritional supplements, balanced nutrition and proper exercise your body will work better at keeping your gut’s microorganism levels where they should be.