Aspartame and saccharin are the two most commonly used artificial sweeteners. Considered non-toxic and safe, both saccharin and aspartame have found their way into the food chain. Both sweeteners are not only found in drinks but also in children’s jellies, lollies, puddings, crops, beans, and even tinned pasta.
If you eat artificial sweeteners, the body naturally responds to their sweet taste secreting insulin. Doing its normal job, the pancreas has already prepared a portion of insulin that now floats about in the blood stream searching for the expected sugar. Since it can’t find it there, the insulin removes some of the blood sugar instead. This effectively lowers your sugar levels. However, since this situation can be life endangering, your body quickly signals “hunger” which becomes a sudden, strong “craving”. Since foods with artificial sweeteners are not able to meet the demand for an increase in blood sugar, you begin to look for sugary foods. You start craving foods, particularly refined carbohydrates such as ordinary sugar, chocolate, sweet drinks, etc., which all give you an instant boost of energy. But also contain only “empty” energy and just raise your sugar level in the blood for a short time. After a little while the sugar levels drops below normal, which may cause depression, moodiness, and exhaustion.
If you are overweight and believe that you can reduce weight by restricting your daily intake of calories, you will be very disappointed. Within a few days, your body will run out of energy and wants to eat, hence an increased appetite or cravings. If you still don’t eat enough, you will fall into a depression, which may cause you bingeing on food ravenously. Your body thinks there are regular famines going on and tries to convert some of the food into fat to deposit it for the next one. After each “voluntary famine” or “weight reducing” diet, your body will put on more weight much faster than it did before. This is known as the yo-yo effect.
Diet foods and diet drinks have not only contributed to a massive increase of sugar consumption and obesity but also led to an “epidemic” depression.
Apart from causing obesity and depression, sweeteners have been linked to insomnia, headaches, giddiness, loss of memory, nausea, pre-menstrual syndrome, panic attacks, and even overstimulation of breast glands leading to breast cancer.
Hundreds of pilots have reported symptoms of memory loss, and confusion, headaches, seizures, visual disturbances and gastrointestinal reaction as a result of consuming sweeteners
If pregnant women consume large quantities of diet sodas to avoid weight gain, their placenta may accumulate metyl alcohol, causing mental retardation in the foetus.
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