This seemingly “healthy” choice can derail weight loss success

It’s that time of year again — millions of people have made resolutions to lose weight and improve their health.

Unfortunately, we know how these often tend to go.

In spite of all the plans and willpower, a majority of weight-loss efforts still fail.

One of the key culprits behind those failures is something that many people turn to for a weight-loss assist: Diet soda.

The reality? Taking soda out of your diet is an excellent move. But replacing it with diet soda is one of the reasons many weight-loss plans fail.

And the worst of it? These fake sweeteners wreak havoc on your metabolic health too — actually increasing your Type II diabetes risk.

It’s more than just calories

A few years ago, a team of Israeli researchers were surprised by their results after testing the artificial sweetener aspartame on mice.

Contrary to what you would logically expect, the zero-calorie, non-sugar sweetener prompted blood sugar spikes. Well that wasn’t supposed to happen!

When they conducted similar tests on humans, results showed the same trend.

More recently, Yale School of Medicine researchers used neuroimaging on human volunteers to observe the effects of a variety of beverages, some sweetened with sugar and others sweetened with sugar substitutes.

As with the Israeli studies, participants in the Yale trial had greater metabolic responses to the low-calorie, sugar-free beverages compared to high-calorie drinks.

Again — these are the exact opposite effects that people expect to get when they begin a weight-loss program and try to make better choices by drinking “diet” soda or eating “sugar-free” treats.

And the Yale study noted something unexpected. The lead author said, “The assumption that more calories trigger greater metabolic and brain response is wrong. Calories are only half of the equation; sweet taste perception is the other half.”

She adds that this may explain why previous research reveals the surprising association between the use of sugar substitutes and higher risk of Type II diabetes.

Plenty of potential harm

In his Integrative Protocol for Defeating Diabetes, Dr. Marc Micozzi elaborates on this contradiction of sugar substitutes’ harmful effects on metabolism.

He says, “Zero-calorie artificial sweeteners can contribute to the medical problems they’re supposedly meant to prevent.” Which of course, includes Type II diabetes and obesity.

Dr. Micozzi lists three theories behind this phenomenon:

• Artificial sweeteners increase your body’s craving for sweet foods and sugars
• They alter your brain chemistry
• They cause a fundamental alteration in your metabolism

Most likely, all three of these factors come into play. And the result, Dr. Micozzi says, is that artificial sweeteners are just as addictive as sucrose (table sugar), which is highly addictive, of course.

On top of all this, there’s the potential harm these sweeteners can cause to your overall health. Dr. Micozzi points out that aspartame (NutraSweet®, Equal®), sucralose (Splenda®), and acesulfame K (Sweet One®) have all been linked with the potential to cause a number of disorders, including:

• Cancer
• Chronic Inflammation
• Migraine headaches
• A variety of nervous system disorders

As sweet as honey

To avoid artificial sweeteners and sugar, Dr. Micozzi recommends Mother Nature’s original sweetener: Honey.

He explains that sugars in the honey biomatrix are more complex than sucrose in cane sugar. This is beneficial because it takes your body more time to digest and metabolize it — the opposite of a blood sugar spike.

Honey also has plenty of vitamins, minerals, and herbal constituents gathered by bees — especially if you use raw honey. Dr. Micozzi points out that these nutrients reduce inflammation and pain to promote rapid healing.

In fact, he says, honey has proven anti-microbial, antibiotic, and antiseptic properties.

But honey isn’t the only healthy alternative to artificial sweeteners. To learn about other sweet recommendations that won’t prompt you to pack on extra pounds, or increase your diabetes risk, refer to Dr. Micozzi’s Integrative Protocol for Defeating Diabetes. To learn more about this online learning tool, or to enroll, simply click here.

SOURCES

cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(17)30876-X
Integration of Sweet Taste and Metabolism Determines Carbohydrate Reward
Current Biology
August 10, 2017