I used to get seriously angry when someone saw me drinking diet Coke and they would say.
“You know that’s worse for you than normal coke.”
I would tell them that there are no studies that show artificial sweeteners are bad for you and they certainly don’t make you fat.
Well, I was actually wrong.
There are now studies showing that these artificial sweeteners can cause some nasty side effects.
They Can Actually make you fatter!
How can this be possible if diet fizzy drinks don’t contain any calories?
Studies have shown Splenda (sucralose), which is the main sweetener in almost all protein powders, when consumed with carbohydrate containing foods caused massive dysregulation to insulin and blood sugar control.
The adults in the study only had 7 sucralose containing drinks with carbohydrate containing foods and this was enough to cause insulin resistance and glucose intolerance.
Study link here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7784207/
So to break it down, when you consume artificial sweeteners with carbohydrate containing foods such as bread, the sweetness does not match the amount of carbohydrates your body is expecting form these foods and therefore produces more insulin than it actually needs. This confuses your body and leads to insulin resistance and glucose intolerance.
Usually if something is sweet it contains sugar and your body will release insulin to lower blood sugar back to baseline but with artificial sweeteners your body thinks it’s getting sugar and releases insulin but there is no rise in blood glucose.
This causes your insulin sensitivity to drop i.e., your muscle cells, liver cells and fat cells over time will not respond as efficiently to insulin and therefore your blood glucose will stay chronically elevated causing metabolic syndrome and possibly diabetes.
Disruption to Gut Health
This study shows how artificial sweeteners can damage the intestinal lining and cause leaky gut. Leaky gut can lead to systemic inflammation and autoimmune conditions.
This study below shows how consuming artificial sweeteners damages the lining of your gut.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353258
Even Stevia can cause gut issues too by causing imbalances in your gut flora.
It does this by anti-quorum sensing activity. Quorum sensing is the way all the bacteria in your gut communicate with each other. Stevia and most of these artificial sweeteners disrupt this.
In a previous article link here, I discussed how important the bacteria in your gut are for your immune system and mental health.
If the microbiota in your gut is disrupted this can lead to lowered immunity and poor mood.
Study link here https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33238612/
They can cause serious Anxiety
Aspartame is the main sweetener in diet fizzy drinks and is shown to cause anxiety.
The study below shows that giving a dose of aspartame to mice (a dose 15% of the FDA recommended maximum for human consumption) induced anxiety behaviours that were passed onto their offspring.
Really small doses of aspartame cause changes in the brain and this is found in plenty of foods and drinks. One of our favourites in particular diet coke.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36459641
Conclusion
Sweeteners with no calories are too good to be true.
They can cause;
1. Disruption to your gut health by damaging gut flora and causing leaky gut.
2. Make you fatter by causing Insulin resistance and poor blood sugar control
3. Anxiety that is passed onto the next generation
Please avoid these sweeteners as they are not harmless like we once thought and even a small amount can cause damage to your health.
