Artificial sweeteners and light products: the facts

More and more people in the Netherlands choose for all kinds of light products and special foods for diabetics, so they can get rid of their overweight permanently or keep their blood sugar level up as much as possible. All these products are sweetened artificially, containing aspartame as the most used agent. What effects do all these sweeteners and, equally, light products have on our health? Does their use imply health risks? Can light products do what they have been promising to customers for years now, i.e. get their weight down?

Natural sweeteners

Sugar substitutes have been used in many foods for 40 years now. More and more people in the Netherlands are faced with overweight and all its harmful consequences for their health. Needless to say, as a result of the increasing use of all these sugar substitutes and light products, they are in high demand.

In food industry, two kinds of artificial sweeteners are used, which are either natural sugar substitutes or artificial sugar subtitutes. Xylitol and Sorbitol are the leading natural sugar substitutes on the market. As to their taste, they are hardly distinguishable from it and contain about just as many calories as well. Both Xylitol and Sorbitol are used predominantly in a lot of sweets such as chewing gum, because they prevent dental caries. Both sweeteners are very common in foods for diabetics. They hardly affect our blood sugar level and practically have no disadvantages. However, taking them in great quantities causes diarrhoea and stomach complaints.

Artificial sweeteners and health risks

Artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin and cyclamate are a different story. They are no less than 400 times sweeter than sugar and are mainly used in light products. The last few years quite a lot of scientific research was conducted into the consequences of the use of these artificial sweeteners for our health. The results of all these studies were simply alarming. When these sweeteners are heated up by our body temperature, the body produces the toxic agent formoline, which causes migraine.

There are a lot more health risks involved in both artificial sweeteners and formoline. It is common knowledge that aspartame, saccharin and cyclamates contain the toxic agent methyl alcohol. An enzym in our brains converts methyl alcohol into the above mentioned formoline. Apart from causing migraine, a lot worse than that, formoline greatly increases the chance of breast cancer and may also cause multiple sclerosis, which affects the nervous system and does severe damage to the brain.

During a recent large-scale scientific study in China, it came to light that formoline, even in very small quantities, affects our brains and weakens our memory. It is capable of changing our brain structure and causing severe malformations of the brains, similar to those assessed in Alzheimer's Disease. Artificial sugar substitutes may even cause cancer, all kinds of hereditary disorders, congenital physical defects and mental aberrations. Furthermore, aspartame has been scientifically proved to be responsible for life-threatening thyroid gland disorders.

Effects of light products

How about light products, which are very common in most shops nowadays? Can they do what they have been promising to customers for years now, i.e. get their weight down? Although they actually contain 30 percent less sugar and fat, they also contain great quantities of artificial sweeteners. The only thing that is certain is that light products do not get your weight down. On the contrary, dieticians recently reached the disconcerting conclusion that, if we used light products only for a year long, we would put on 12 kilos (26.4 lb.), instead of losing weight.

Sources: www.todio.nl