The bittersweet agents of sweetness!
There’s a certain dilemma about the sweet knife that is an ‘artificial sweetener’. Does it in reality help us to cut down our weight or add on? How sinful or sinless is an artificial sweetener? The certainties and the uncertainties leading to various conjectures regarding the sweetening agents are entwined and are debatable. These agents came into existence accidentally by a few brave and bored scientists who had the audacity to taste their samples.
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Evidently, they closed their eyes to the violation of innumerable codes of laboratory hygiene (highly inadvisable move)! The first fluky champ was Saccharin, discovered in 1879 at Johns Hopkins by a scientist who was busy as a beaver working on coal tar derivatives. Little did he know he was going to open up a treasure chest for countless sweet-tooths, waiting fervently to jump on the “no guilt” train to escape the remorse of indulging in sweets. Eventually there was an awakening, wherein people started to gather the fact that artificial sweeteners were not a magical wand to weight loss. However, a large number of humans still are oblivious to that truth. Scientists are up until now wondering in puzzlement if the disadvantages of these sweetening agents outweigh their advantages.
Artificial sweeteners are also referred to as high-intensity sweeteners due to the fact that they’re hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar (sucrose). Since these agents are highly concentrated in sweetness, a miniscule amount of it is required for them to level up with our table sugar. Indeed, in this case, less is more! The most commonly used artificial sweeteners are: - saccharin (300 times sweeter than sugar), aspartame (200 times sweeter than sugar), neotame (7,000 times sweeter than sugar), and sucralose (600 times sweeter than sugar and most recently discovered).
Amongst the specified sweeteners, aspartame has shown side effects in people with Phenylketonuria and has been banned by the food and drug administration (FDA) in the United States (US). Phenylketonuria is a rare genetic disorder wherein people can’t breakdown the amino acid phenylalanine, which then accumulates in the blood and brain leading to brain damage. A grave situation for sure but as luck would have it, a rare one. Then there was another sweetening agent namely cyclamate, that faced hardships surviving in the market due to its carcinogenic properties and was, therefore, banned in 1969, although some scientists refuted its ban because it demonstrated bladder cancer in rats and not the humans per se.
There’s more to artificial sweeteners than meets the eye. They talk to us in sugar-coated language and lure us into their consumption. It’s not a brain teaser when asked to choose a soda drink that has 12 ounces of sugar with bountiful supply of 150 calories and a drink with equal quantity of soda plus no calories! Dr Christopher Gardener, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in California, says; “While they’re not magic bullets, smart use of non-nutritive sweeteners could help you reduce added sugars in your diet, therefore lowering the number of calories you eat. Reducing calories could help you attain and maintain a healthy body weight, and thereby lower your risk of heart disease, as well as diabetes.” It’s a boon until one starts exploiting it.
For the same reason, the American Heart Association (AHA) and American Diabetes Association (ADA) have validated a restrained go-ahead to the usage of the sweetening agents instead of sugar to battle obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and heart disease. Artificial sweeteners are labelled non-nutritive because they’re devoid of anything nutritious. They do not contain any calories, energy or vitamins whatsoever. Although they’re found vastly in several processed food products such as soft drinks, candy and canned foods, the pleasure received from them is as short-lived as the food products they’re found in!
Even though the studies are inconclusive, the assurances made by artificial sweeteners are seemingly hollow. According to some researches, frequent ingestion of sweetening agents allegedly messes up with your endocrine, digestive and metabolic systems. A thrilling study in the Journal of Behavioural Neuroscience has revealed that not only these ‘too good to be true’ artificial sweeteners prevent weight loss, they also set in motion an entire array of physiological and hormonal reactions which in turn make you gain weight.
This augments the risks of heart disease, hypertension and type two diabetes. We’re surrounded by numerous health foods incorporating sweeteners that toy with brain’s cognitive (reasoning) functions and result in metabolic disruptions. These sweetening agents nudge us to reward ourselves for all the calories we apparently didn’t take with the use of an artificial sweetener. Thus, this counterintuitive notion hampers with our rational thinking and satiety. According to Susan Swithers, a Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at Purdue University, a taste of something sweet prepares the brain and the gut for digestion of incoming calories. When this doesn’t happen with intake of artificial sweeteners, those metabolic responses don’t work the way they should and insulin (the hormone that uses up sugar/glucose from carbohydrates to produce energy in the body or to save glucose for future purpose) doesn’t increase either.
Cheers to the sweetening agents, consequently our body suffers through a hormonal imbalance. The extreme sweetness of artificial sweeteners spoils our taste buds too. Taste buds stop appreciating less sweet foods like fruits and don’t find them appealing anymore, besides vegetables are considered downright foul-tasting by them. Dr David Ludwig, a specialist at Harvard affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital, enlightens us with a startling piece of information. He says certain animal studies, specifically with rats, have shown that oral saccharine is more addictive and alluring than intravenous cocaine to rats! Well, Pablo Escobar sure must be disappointed and rolling over in his grave at that!
There is a definite wisdom in caution towards the human world. This doesn’t imply that one must shun all that is man-made but gracefully embrace all that nature has to offer as well. Umpteen glorious scientific inventions do not hold the roots to being alive. The essentials most desired by the heart are the nature, nourishment and love. These make the human experience way more enthralling! Instead of regularly taking your body through a turbulent ride of artificial sweeteners, try to consume them in moderation. After all, too much of anything is good for nothing; hence, maintain the equilibrium. Nevertheless, the best bet would be to have a glass of water, an apple and a good laugh, since laughter burns those stringent calories!
The writer is a Biotechnologist and Entrepreneur who writes popular science articles; simplifies science and blends it with witty snippets for public awareness.
parulb@hotmail.com