Notes on "The Park Avenue Diet Show: Sweetness and Light"; August 8, 2010

The topic of artificial sweeteners is as controversial as they get. These miracles of modern chemistry have changed the palates of the American public since the mid-1960’s. But why were they invented in the first place? Surely there are enough natural substances to go around, for example cane sugar, stevia, fructose and lactose.

Artificial sweeteners however, earned their role in our culture since they purportedly are a useful tool for weight loss and weight control. But, as we also learned in the 1960’s, “everything you know is wrong.” Is it possible that the massive increase in the incidence of obesity that began in the 1970’s is not merely a correlation with the use of artificial sweeteners but a causative factor? Put another way, does the use of artificial sweeteners make people fatter?

This was a possible interpretation of a shocking study presented at the American Diabetes Association convention in 2005. A large-scale study showed that the more diet sodas a person drank, the more likely he or she would be obese. I appeared on CNN This Morning and was interviewed by Soledad O’Brien on this topic. You can actually see this interview on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yklNA6oE0DI


Several other journal articles have appeared since 2005 which seem to confirm the suspicions of those researchers. Take a look at these articles. You may not be able to understand the technical language or the statistics, but you certainly will be disturbed to know that the role of artificial sweeteners in your diet is by no means clear—or beneficial.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/short/ajcn.2008.26792v1

http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.med.nutrition/2005-06/msg01172.html

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/JAMA-questions-sense-of-sweeteners-for-weight-loss


Non-nutritive (artificial) sweeteners are chemosensory signaling compounds. They tell your brain that you have just ingested many calories of an imaginary sugar, but there may be a backlash of sorts. The sweeteners may condition the body to no longer associate sweetness with calories, thereby disrupting its ability to accurately assess calorie intake. Practically speaking this means that after a diet soda or two, you may overeat dessert because it doesn’t seem as sweet as those chemicals (sucralose, aspartame, saccharin).

In summary, non-nutritive sweeteners:
(1) May increase appetite.
(2) May promote energy intake, not restrict it.
(3) May contribute to obesity.

The last of these three points is obviously the most controversial. This is a source of much back-and-forth arguing in the dietary community. The matter is hardly settled yet. Could overweight or obese people be easing their consciences by substituting an artificial sweetener for a packet of sugar (which only saves them 20 calories)?

Or could the aforementioned chemicals disrupt the feedback mechanism of satiation to such a degree that artificial sweeteners in fact cause the illness, obesity, which they are meant to cure? There is no answer as yet. What do you think?


Here are the two quiz questions explained:

How much swimming do you have to do to burn off the calories from one packet of sugar? Answer: A packet of sugar contains about 20 calories. Swimming burns off approximately 600 calories per hour. Therefore 20 calories would disappear in one thirtieth of that time period, namely two minutes.

If you switch to an artificial sweetener for your morning cup of coffee and do nothing else differently, in how long will you lose one pound? Answer: Since one pound of body fat requires a sacrifice of 3500 calories and there are 20 calories in a packet of table sugar, this process will take 175 days, about six months. Please note that if you are using artificial sweeteners at breakfast time but having a high-calorie meal (like a bagel with cream cheese or pancakes)…naughty, naughty.