15-minute blog: Before you add that artificial sweetener...

Thousands of people use non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS) to ad a little flavor to their drinks but studies show they may want to use a more natural sweetener such as Stevia.

Lemme tell you why...

The gut is filled with bacteria that process much of the foods we eat.  These bacteria create byproducts that are absorbed through our gut and make their way into our bloodstream.  Some bacteria create byproducts that are good for us, and others create toxic byproducts that hurt us.  The foods we consume play a large role in determining which bacteria, good or bad, thrive in our guts.  The more bad bacteria we have in our guts, the more our bodies suffer from their harmful byproducts.

Apparently, NASs  changes the balance of bacteria in our guts and promote some pretty bad things.  A study published in the September 2014 Nature journal demonstrated how the intestinal microbiota (the variety of bacteria living in the intestines) of mice that consumed NASs was altered resulting in glucose intolerance.  Glucose intolerance is a pre-diabetic state of high blood sugar and is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The book Brain Maker by Dr. David Perlmutter goes pretty deep into detail about what foods are good and bad for our microbiota so if this stuff interests you, I suggest you go out and purchase his book.

I've been using Stevia to sweeten my foods for the past 12 years.  I think it took a little getting used to but now I can't even taste the difference between Stevia and sugar.  A 2010 Systematic Review of Stevia published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition stated the following:

"Stevia is likely to become a major source of high-potency sweetener for the growing natural food market in the future. Although Stevia can be helpful to anyone, there are certain groups who are more likely to benefit from its remarkable sweetening potential. These include diabetic patients, those interested in decreasing caloric intake, and children. Stevia is a small perennial shrub that has been used for centuries as a bio-sweetener and for other medicinal uses such as to lower blood sugar. Its white crystalline compound (stevioside) is the natural herbal sweetener with no calories and is over 100−300 times sweeter than table sugar."

A Stevia Plant: All Natural Sweetener

 The bottom line is that you should stay away from artificial sweeteners but if you can't, make it a point to ingest probiotics to promote the proliferation of 'GOOD' bacteria in your gut.  It blows my mind because many use these sweeteners to prevent glucose intolerance while ironically increasing their risk by using NASs.  Crazy, eh?


Happy eating and hope this helps,

DAVE

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