Health News

Artificial Sweeteners Are Not Safe 

By Kellie Hill, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner  

Many diets recommend using artificial sweeteners in place of sugar to keep the taste and lose the weight. These artificial sweeteners come in many forms including Aspartame, saccharine, Sucralose, and Acesulfame-K. They are readily available at the grocery store as well as in many foods and soft drinks. So, let’s break a few of the main ones down . . . 

Artificial Sweetener Aspartame: 

Aspartame: a low-calorie artificial sweetener commonly known as NutraSweet and is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. The Aspartame Consumer Safety Network reports “85% of all complaints registered with the Food and Drug Administration, the US government agency that oversees food and drug safety, concerns aspartame’s adverse reactions” including menstrual changes, weight gain, and headaches to severe depression, insomnia, and anxiety attacks. 

Artificial Sweetener Saccharin 

Saccharin: is a non-nutritive artificial sweetener that passes through the body unchanged and is excreted in the urine. It is reported anywhere from 300-700 times as sweet as sugar. Studies have shown this to be a cancer-causing agent. 

Artificial Sweetener Sucrolose 

Sucrolose: a no-calorie artificial sweetener commonly known as Splenda and is 600 times sweeter than sugar. James Bowen, M.D., a physician, biochemist, and survivor of aspartame poisoning warns, “Splenda/sucralose is simply chlorinated sugar; a chlorocarbon. Common chlorocarbons include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene and methylene chloride, all deadly. Chlorine is nature’s Doberman attack dog, a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WWI poison gas and hydrochloric acid.” 

Artificial Sweetener Acesulfame-K 

Acesulfame-K: is and artificial sweetener used in packet and tablet form, but is mostly seen as an artificial sweetener in sugar-free chewing gum. It is 200 times as sweet as sugar. Laboratory tests have shown this product causes cancer in animals. 

Artificial Sweetener Health Issues 

Remember that all of these artificial sweeteners were developed to extend the shelf life of products so companies could make a higher profit with less waste. Commercialism isn’t bad, as long as our health isn’t at stake. 

Note that each of these artificial sweeteners are 200-700 times as sweet. This causes our taste-buds to adapt to this extra artificial sweetness to a point where whole foods, like an apple, no longer taste sweet by themselves. 

There has recently been a lot of documentation showing that people have increased cravings for sweet and fatty foods when artificial sweeteners are regularly consumed. 

New evidence is showing that many of the body’s sugar handling mechanisms are still fired when our taste-buds identify “sweet” (even though it’s an artificial sweetener), triggering the release of unused, unnecessary hormones. 

Artificial sweeteners can also make you feel bloated and fat, which can cause you to not eat real, whole, nutrient-dense foods. 

Artificial Sweetener Alternatives 

It’s time to admit that there is no free ticket to eating all the sugar-free products with artificial sweeteners desired without paying the high price of harming our bodies in the long run. Stick with natural sweeteners, like raw organic local honey, stevia, coconut sugar, evaporated cane juice, or maple syrup instead of sweeteners that have been “manufactured”.