Artificial

Sweeteners... This might make you

queasy

www.bingeeatingbreakthrough.com

If you're like me or one of the millions of people around the globe that use

artificial sweeteners in order to avoid consuming excess calories (and

perhaps shed a few pounds), the latest research might make you queasy.

The science journal, Nature, recently

published a comprehensive study

completed by a team of scientists from the

Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

They studied mice and humans, and were

initially surprised by their results. So they

repeated their studies multiple times.

Their studies

showed each time

that artificial

sweeteners could

very likely raise your

blood sugar levels

MORE than if you

simply ate sugar -

sweetened desserts

and sodas.

Segal and Elinav, two scientists from the group, added saccharin, sucralose,

or aspartame to the drinking water of mice and found that their blood sugar

levels were higher than those of mice who drank sugar water no matter

whether the animals were on a normal diet or a highfat diet.

When the sweetener fed mice were given antibiotics to clear their gut of

bacteria, their blood sugar levels dropped back down to normal.

The scientists also studied nearly 400 people and found the bacteria in the guts of those

who ate and drank artificial sweeteners were different from those who did not. People who

used artificial sweeteners also tended to have higher fasting blood sugar levels and

impaired blood sugar tolerance.

Finally, the researchers recruited seven volunteers, five men and two women, who normally

didn’t eat or drink products with artificial sweeteners and followed them for a week, tracking

their blood sugar levels. The volunteers were given the FDA’s maximum acceptable daily

intake of saccharin from day two through day seven. By the end of the week, blood sugar

levels had risen in four of the seven people.

What does this mean for you?

In laymen's terms, this means that the diet stuff might be what's causing your weight to

increase...and your cravings for sweet stuff to get stronger.

If you notice that you've been using sweeteners or drinking diet soda but it doesn't seem to

be helping you lose weight or curb your urges to binge on sweet stuff, then you're likely

someone who's blood sugar is affected by sweeteners and not in the way you want it to be.

I obsessively used sweeteners for 14 years,

refusing to believe any of the negative hype about

them. No matter how much my family or friends

suggested that the fake sugars were doing more

harm than good, I was certain that they were

helping me to maintain or lose weight.

They were the way I tried to make up for binge

eating...if I used nocalorie sweeteners and drank

diet soda to fast for a day after a binge, surely it

would balance out.

After 3 years of gaining weight from this, I could no longer deny that this was not working.

Even a year after breaking my habit with binging, I still would find myself pining for sweets

every night before bed. It didn't matter if I was full from dinner I still wanted something

sweet. And my weight wasn't shifting though I was no longer binging.

The huge insight came while traveling in Italy. I decided to eat gelato and desserts

while I was there, since I would return to "normal" after a few weeks. Eating sugar was

something I'd avoided for so long, I expected I would go nuts and be unstoppable.

To my surprise, I discovered how satisfied I was after eating desserts...and normal portions of

them. For all the years of avoiding eating sugar, I'd overeaten sugar free foods. How ironic that

eating sugar would help me achieve what I'd wanted all along: to feel satisfied and at peace

with food.

Eating tons of sugar is not the key, but switching to sugar from sugar free was the turning point.

Our bodies know how to metabolize minimal amounts of sugar; it's gobs of chemically

concocted pseudosugar that it doesn't know what to do with.

Thanks to references from WebMD for this article, originally posted here:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20140917/artificialsweetenersbloodsugar?page=2

For useful support to help with sugar addiction or binge eating (and if conventional advice

hasn't worked for you), get a FREE course and further resources at

http://www.bingeeatingbreakthrough.com.