Splenda & Fat Loss : The Calorie Free Lie

All major soft drink advertisers count their stock options on an evolutionary flaw they've sold towards for years:

Our physiology is hardwired to love the taste of sweet.

In walks “Diet soda.”

Welcome to the mentality of justification.

Trying to lose weight while drinking diet soda is like running with a sock in your mouth, you're not going to make it to the finish-line. The sensation of sweet releases insulin and transports thousands of reactions in our endocrine system that starts a chain reaction into tubby-town.

Our neurological processes are hard wired in genetic codes when it comes to sugar signals. So while millions of Americans at home reach for their pick-me-up diet soda, all the while justifying “its okay because its zero calories” metabolic derangement is busy parking in the driveway.

Coca-Cola, with its caffeine-jacked, additive-packed vitamin enriched diet soda, is making one of the kids down the street a lifetime member of the diabetic risk club.

Going strong on your real-food diet and eating lean meats, seafood, poultry and pork along with fresh local organic vegetables, nuts and seeds yet still not seeing the results you wanted? The answer could be as simple as the liquids you are drinking. Put down the calorie free can and allow me to introduce the pink elephant in the room- Splenda.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola have teams of well paid doctors and lawyers that will testify in court about the positive health benefits of diet soda and artificial sweeteners. Just like the diet soda, however, this is far to good be true.

The low-down:

Splenda Sucralose is the newest fake sweetener on the market. It's well known for its claims to be made from real sugar. Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). It yields zero calories and is not fully absorbed. In 1998, it was approved for small usage, and in 1999, it was given full approval for use as a general-purpose sweetener. Splenda is currently found in over 4,500 products, including foods that are cooked or baked.

The major problem with any artificial product is that the human body cannot identify it; therefore it cannot properly assimilate and digest it. When toxins are stored in the body they usually sprint for the liver and onto the rest of the digestive system. It is widely known that Splenda produces an increase in insulin levels via brain activation as it received what it knew to be an authentic reaction from the taste buds.

Whether or not calories are present, this message in the CNS will signal the body to hold on to fat reserves or, depending on the body's state, even store more fat.

The complete illusion of sweetness fools the brain into believing it has received natural metabolic energy.

The takeaway: Fake sugar leads to weight gain!

In 2007, a scientific panel fed rats artificial sweeteners to determine the affects of sugar via water-

“Animals use sweet taste to predict the caloric levels of food. Eating sweet no caloric substances may reduce this relationship, leading to positive energy balance through increased food intake. Adult male rats were given differential experience with a sweet taste that either predicted increased caloric content (glucose) or didn't predict increased calories (saccharin). We found that reducing the correlation between sweet taste and the caloric content of foods using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in raised caloric intake, weight and adiposity, as well as diminished caloric compensation. It also blunted thermic responses to sweet-tasting diets. These results suggest that consumption of products containing artificial sweeteners may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic, physiological processes.”

The evidence: (of the same effect is found in humans)

Splenda is not satisfying–at least according to the brain. A new study found that even when the palate cannot distinguish between the artificial sweetener and sugar, our brain knows the difference.

In a UC San Diego study, 12 women underwent functional MRI while sipping water sweetened with either real sugar (sucrose) or Splenda (sucralose). Sweeteners, real or artificial, bind to and stimulate receptors on the taste buds, which then signal the brain via the cranial nerve. Although both sugar and Splenda initiate the same taste and pleasure pathways in the brain–and the subjects could not tell the solutions apart–the sugar activated pleasure-related brain regions more extensively than the Splenda did.

In particular, “the real thing, the sugar, elicits a much greater response in the insula,” says the study's lead author, psychiatrist Guido Frank. The insula, involved with taste, also plays a role in enjoyment by connecting regions in the reward system that encode the sensation of pleasantness.

There is only one drink that nature ever intended us to drink and that is pure, clean and non-fluoridated water.

I'm getting thirsty.

Questions? Start here