Sugar substitutes are little packets of subterfuge, playing all kinds of mischief on your taste, your appetite, and even your restraint. They play the role of trickster, bamboozling your body into a cascade of reactions that stem from a false premise of sweetness. A growing body of research suggests the effects of chronic artificial sugar consumption may have surprisingly bitter consequences. "We used to think artificial sweeteners were the answer to everything. But they are not as virtuous as they'd like you to believe—they are serious chemicals that may have adverse effects on your health," says Brooke Alpert, MS, RD, CDN, and author of The Sugar Detox: Lose Weight, Feel Great, and Look Years Younger.
When you finally stop trying to take shortcuts with sugar, your whole body starts to recalibrate. Here are 6 things that will happen when you eschew the fake stuff and figure out a more moderate approach to sweets. (The key to losing weight—and keeping it off—is forming healthier habits. That's where Prevention's new 10-minute daily workouts and meals come in. Get Fit in 10: Slim and Strong for Life now!)
Your taste buds will stop getting tricked.
Artificial sweeteners skew the way we taste food. While manufacturers try to match the sweetness of sugar, they tend to go overboard, creating sweetness levels that exceed those of sugar. "The sweetness levels of these artificial sweeteners bombard our taste buds and they cause us to no longer be able to determine what is sweet anymore," says Alpert. "We lose our taste for natural sweetness. Because of that we need heavy levels of sweetness to satisfy that sweet tooth." Naturally sweet foods, such as fruit, lose their appeal and savory foods, such as vegetables, become unpalatable.
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Your microbiome can regroup.
"I call anything that targets and affects the gut in a negative way a red flag," says Alpert. For Kristina Rother, MD, a clinical investigator in the Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Obesity Branch at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), whose research specializes in the metabolic effects of artificial sweeteners, one of the most troubling aspects of artificial sweeteners is how they change the microbiome. "Artificial sweeteners block the growth of certain bacteria in the gut," Rother says. (Here are 4 easy ways to boost your gut's good bacteria.)
In a landmark study by a team of Israeli scientists on the effects of artificial sweeteners in mice, it changed the mice's microbiome to make it more efficient. "It's mean—the same amount of food made them gain more weight," says Rother. Essentially, the study showed that artificial sweeteners increased the strains of gut bacteria that are more efficient at extracting energy from food and turning that energy into fat. Although it's been challenging to demonstrate this effect in humans, researchers speculate that a similar response in humans may be one reason that artificial sugars can trigger weight gain. This may begin as early as during lactation, since Rother's group found ample artificial sweeteners in breast milk of moms who drink diet soda.
This is what diet soda does to your body:
Your blood sugar levels will stabilize.
When sweet receptors are triggered in the body by artificial sweeteners, the body reacts as if it were real sugar. This makes the body less effective at burning fat. "It's like yelling at my kids—the more I yell the less they react," says Alpert. Artificial sugars fools the body into thinking more sugar is on the way, so it makes make more insulin. "Among people who consumed artificial sugar, there was a 20% increase in insulin concentrations, which decreases blood sugar," says Rother. The result? Insulin keeps fat in our cells, builds up energy stores, and makes you hungry. This could have serious implications for our metabolism: Artificial sugars may increase insulin resistance and lead to both metabolic syndrome as well as type 2 diabetes.
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You may finally shed those pounds.
"There is good reason to believe that artificial sugars are causatively connected to obesity," says Rother. "The belief that many artificial sugar fans hold is 'I saved myself some calories, so I will have dessert.' It's a compensation plus an overcompensation mentality."
But a growing amount of studies show that artificial sweeteners may have counterintuitive effect on weight gain. According to a study published in Physiology & Behavior, artificial sweeteners mess with our brain chemistry, increasing the craving for more fattening sugars, starches, and carbohydrates. The link in our brains between sweetness and calories gets out of whack. It may make us wired for sweets in a way that ordinary sugar doesn't. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics showed infants whose mothers drank artificial sweeteners on a daily basis during pregnancy were twice as likely to be overweight at one year of life as those whose mothers did not drink any artificial sweeteners.
You'll reduce your intake of GMOs.
If the link with weight gain and type 2 diabetes wasn't enough, there's also the fact that artificial sugars comprise a sneaky source of genetically modified crops in your food. Artificial sweeteners tend to be made from corn, soy, or sugar beets. In the United States, these are three of the main crops modified by genetic engineering. While the research on GMO's may not be conclusive, "concerns about their long term effects on the body abound," says Alpert.
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You'll make better food choices.
The biggest takeaway from the current spate of research is that it’s healthier to consume moderate amounts of real sugar than dabble in substitutes—that way, at least you know what are you dealing with. Make sugar an intentional indulgence, says Alpert, and you’ll have a better knack for portion control. People who opt for “diet” foods have skewed understanding of what constitutes healthy. If you eat fresh, unprocessed food, you will not encounter artificial sugar, says Rother. “I don’t believe that artificial sweeteners serve any kind of good purpose."
