This is the second installment of my research regarding artificial sweeteners.

Herein lays the bitter truth on artificial sweeteners and how we may be mislead in their applications.

In this carbohydrate drenched society we live in, one thing is true. We North Americans love our sweets.

In fact, in recent publications in a leading medical journal we have been described as the fattest society to ever occupy North America.

Juvenile diabetes and adult onset diabetes has doubled in the last 21 years.

In our eternal search for sweeteners that do not cause us to gain weight, we came up with the category of non-foods that I classify as the artificial sweeteners (AS).

Some research states that, contrary to popular opinion, most artificial sweeteners actually do cause a spike in the insulin level of the body.

This leads the body to believe that there is sugar to be metabolized later in the gut. When no sugar shows up at the party, the body, through elaborate pathways, eventually produces more fat.

It sounds nice doesn’t it? Something that sweetens our food, doesn’t cause any weight gain and won’t harm the body. It sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Well, unfortunately, it is.

A neurologist by the name of Dr. Russell Blaylock wrote a book entitled Excitotoxins, The Taste That Kills.

In it, he clearly outlines the potential dangers of following the artificial sweeteners brick road. Aspartame, for example, has compounds that are widely known to cause symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, lack of coordination and drowsiness.

In addition, he reported that all artificial sweeteners are considered to have a direct correlation to promoting degenerative brain disease.

There is absolutely no advantage to using artificial sweeteners; they are deleterious to your health. If you are using them, stop.

Your body breaks it down into harmful compounds like methanol and formaldehyde.

Your body knows what to do with sugar. We have intricate pathways that know how to process sugars and in fact your brain’s primary fuel is sugar.

I believe one of the worst things we can give a developing mind of a child is an artificial sweetener because, until the age of 16, their blood brain barrier is not entirely formed, thus making them more susceptible to injury.

This is one of the reasons we are seeing an increased incidence of degenerative brain disease in ever younger adults.

So, what to use instead?

Your body has a pathway to burn sugar, so use it. Your body does not have a pathway to burn NutraSweet, Splenda, Aspartame, or the like.

As a matter of fact the artificial sweeteners you ingest reside in your fat cells and brain tissue until the day you die. There is no elimination pathway for these imposters. If that is not shocking enough, this may set you straight—the longest study conducted on the effects of ASs in the body is only eight years. In other words, we do not know what they will cause long-term.

If you want a sweetener that you can add to your coffee, tea or baking, use stevia.

Stevia is made from the root of a plant and is 200 times sweeter than sugar. It won’t spike your insulin levels and it will not harm you in the way the artificial sweeteners will.

There is enough good information out there to make us take a second look at artificial sweeteners.

Keep it sweet and keep it real. Your body will take care of the rest.

askdrthiel@shaw.ca.