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Diet
Sodas Can Cause Weight Gain!
My observation has been that diet sodas (artificially sweetened
soft drinks), even though containing no appreciable number
of calories, are possibly the cause of more weight gain
in people who drink them to control their weight. There
are countless examples of persons who drink diet sodas and,
instead of losing weight, they begin to gain it. Maybe you
are one of them. The following is the result of my research
into this enigma.
In America in 1850, about 13 ounces of soda were consumed
per person per year. In the late 1980s, more than 500 twelve-ounce
cans of sodas were consumed per person per year. The 1994
annual report of the beverage industry shows that per-capita
consumption of sodas is 49.1 gallons per year. Of this amount,
28.2 percent of consumption is diet soda.
A survey at the campus of Pennsylvania State University
has shown that some students drank 14 cans of soda a day.
One girl had consumed 37 Cokes in two days. Many admitted
they could not live without these soft drinks. If deprived,
these persons would develop withdrawal symptoms, very much
like those addicted to other drugs. Research has proven
that caffeine is addictive. The media, to placate a beverage
industry that spends vast sums of money for advertising
its products, have come up with a less expressive word to
announce the news. They call it "caffeine dependency."
Make no mistake about it, caffeine, one of the main components
of most sodas, is a drug. It has addictive properties because
of its direct action on the brain. It also acts on the kidneys
and causes increased urine production. Caffeine has diuretic
properties, and is physiologically a dehydrating agent.
This characteristic is the main reason a person is inclined
to drink so many cans of soda every day and never be satisfied.
When consumption of sodas is encouraged by society, it
is assumed these manufactured beverages can supply the fluid
needs of the body. It is assumed that just because these
beverages contain water, the body will be adequately served.
This assumption is wrong. Because of the caffeine's diuretic
effect, the water does not stay in the body long enough.
At the same time, many persons confuse their feeling of
thirst as hunger. Thinking they have consumed enough "water"
that is in the soda, they assume they are hungry and begin
to eat more than their body's need for food. Thus, dehydration
caused by caffeine-containing sodas, in due time, will cause
a gradual gain in weight from overeating as a direct result
of confusion of thirst and hunger sensations.
But switching to caffeine-free diet sodas may not be the
solution. Caffeine is not the only harmful ingredient in
these products that may lead to weight gain. In the early
1980s, a new product was introduced into the beverage industry--an
artificial sweetener other than saccharin. It is called
aspartame, otherwise known as Nutrasweet(TM). Aspartame
is 180 times as sweet as sugar without any calorie output.
It is now in common use because the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) has deemed it safe to use in place of sugar. In a
very short period of time, it has been incorporated in over
5000 product recipes.
In the intestinal tract, aspartame converts to two highly
excitatory neurotransmitter amino acids: aspartate and phenylalanine,
as well as methyl alcohol/formaldehyde-wood alcohol. It
is claimed the liver renders methyl alcohol non-toxic. I
personally think this is a false claim made to brush aside
voiced objections for commercialization of a manufactured
"food" that has a known toxic byproduct.
Another problem with artificial sweeteners is a reflex
that occurs when the brain reacts to sweet taste. The jargon
used is "cephalic phase response". When sweet
taste stimulates the tongue, the brain programs the liver
to prepare for acceptance of new energy--sugar--from outside.
If it is indeed sugar that stimulates the response, the
effect on the liver will be the proper regulation of that
sugar which has entered the body. However, if sweet taste
is not followed by real nutrient availability, an urge to
eat will be the outcome. It is the liver that produces the
signals and the urge to eat. The more sweet taste that stimulates
the taste buds without the accompanying calories, the more
there is an urge to eat--overeat.
The effect of cephalic phase response to sweet taste has
been clearly shown in animal models with the use of saccharin.
Using aspartame, several scientists have shown a similar
urge to overeat in humans. Blundel and Hill have shown that
non-nutritive sweeteners (aspartame in solution) will enhance
appetite and increase short-term food intake. They report:
"After ingestion of aspartame, the volunteers were
left with a residual hunger compared with what they reported
after glucose. This residual hunger is functional, it leads
to increased food consumption."
Another group of researchers, Tardoff and Friedman, have
shown that this urge to eat more food after artificial sweeteners
can last up to 90 minutes. They showed that even when blood
levels for insulin achieved normal levels (a high reading
of insulin is believed to be the cause of hunger), test
animals consumed more food than the control batch. What
this means is that the "brain" retains for a long
time the urge to eat when the taste buds for sugar are stimulated
without sugar having entered the system.
The use of artificial sweeteners for their false stimulation
of "nerve terminals" that register the entry of
"energy" supplies into the body have more severe
repercussions than simply causing increase in weight. These
chemicals constantly swing the body physiology in the direction
dictated by the nerve system they stimulate. Their use without
a thorough understanding of their long-term effects in the
body, just because they also pleasantly stimulate the taste
buds, is shortsighted. My understanding of the micro-physiology
within cells causes me concern when I think of the routine
use of these artificial sweeteners. I worry about the outcome
of the long-term effect of the direct stimulation of the
nerve/glandular systems in the brain with these chemical
sweeteners.
Research has shown that receptors for aspartate are abundantly
present on some nerve systems associated with the reproductive
organs and breasts. A constant stimulation of breast glands
without the other factors associated with pregnancy may
well be implicated in the rise in the rate of breast cancer
in women. The hormone, prolactin, may play a major role
in this direction. One of the less explored complications
of aspartame may be its effect as a possible facilitator
in cancer formation in the brain. Fed to rats, aspartame
has been implicated in brain tumor formation in experimental
animals.
It is primitive and simplistic thinking that one could
easily lace water with all sorts of pleasure-enhancing chemicals
and substitute these fluids for the natural and clean water
that the human body needs. Some of these chemicals, caffeine,
aspartame, saccharin and alcohol, through their constant
lopsided effect on the brain, unidirectionally --single
mindedly -- program the body chemistry with results contrary
to the natural design of the body.
One should remember that caffeine is similarly an addictive
drug, the use of which has become "legal." Children,
in particular, become vulnerable to the addictive properties
of these caffeine-containing beverages. Stimulating the
body at the early stages of life of a child with pleasure-enhancing
chemicals in beverages, may in some cases program the senses
to seek more addictive drugs later in life.
Thus, the long-term and constant over-consumption of sodas
in general, and diet sodas in particular, should be assumed
to be responsible for some of the more serious health problems
of our society. Distorting the physical appearance of the
body (excess fat storage) is only the first indication of
a problem.
Article Source: Your Body's Many Cries for Water",
GHS, Inc.
Article Author: F. Batmanghelidj, M.D
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