Every day I see my friends, family and coworkers filling up on sugar free foods with the hopes of being healthier and losing weight. They are eating and drinking everything from sugar free cookies and yogurts to diet sodas. Many of them are the same weight as the day I met them. So I started wondering if the sugar free foods were doing more harm then good.
Researchers have recently discovered that the use of no-calorie sweeteners may make it harder for people to control their intake and weight. The study appeared in the February 2008 issue of Behavioral Science. The researchers found that rats given yogurt sweetened with saccharin later ate more calories, gained more weight and put on more body fat than those that ate yogurt sweetened with glucose, which is just old fashioned sugar. It’s hypothesized that sweet taste of the artificial sweetener tricks the body into preparing for a calorie load and when it doesn’t come, metabolism gets all messed up and the body ends up having trouble regulating appetite.
This is obviously bad news for my friends and family. I have always told them to eat more natural foods, but most of them believe that sugar free equals less calories, equals weight loss. With the popularity of low carbohydrate diets, sugar free products have become even more popular. Personally, I avoid all artificial sweeteners so I do practice what I preach. I don’t let my children eat foods with artificial sweeteners either.
Of course when I told all this to my friends and family they all asked the same question, “So what should we do now?” The answer is, just think about it. I know it can get depressing when experts tell us that too much sugar can cause obesity and now too much artificial sweetener can cause obesity too. You don’t have to throw away all of your sugar free foods just yet, but be aware of how much you eat and maybe try to limit it to one serving a day until more research is available.
We are smarter than rats you know! We can practice the tried and true methods for weight loss like regular exercise, portion control, calorie counting and label reading. These old fashioned methods sometimes turn out to be the best.
- Jennifer
Labels: healthy eating, Jennifer, Recent Research
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