Sugar Substitutes Surprise
science.org
science.org
Whoever finds a way to make left-handed glucose economically is going to be fucking rich.
I can't say I'm an expert, but I haven't seen anything where consuming fructose is worse overall than other sugars. Fruits for example also tend to be high in fructose, and if you're going to have sugars they tend to be one of the best ways.
The hard part is synthesis, not separation.
Apparently he got unshadowbanned recently.
you'd expect to see this if we had a purely synthetic process for the creation of glucose in the lab. but, as far as i know, we only have other biological processes that produce glucose, and as such, only produce the one isomer.
It is however very not economical to do so
If you were to produce a KG of this vs say our common art-sweetners what is the cost multipler
Though I'm not 100% sure maybe sucralose is made by enzymatically installing those halogens? I could be very wrong.
> The participants (20 per group) were given sweetener packets of aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, or stevia, each bulked out with glucose to an equivalent size, with another group that got just glucose and another group that took no sweeteners at all.
In this experiment, the artificial sweeteners used glucose as the filler. They also account for the effects of the glucose filler on the insulin response in all groups by measuring the difference in the response.
Sugar is really cheap, especially if you don’t mind which particular local source you use (sugar cane, corn syrup, etc).
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/sugar-free-...
What's used medically for this purpose (e.g. before a colonoscopy) is an osmotically balanced solution of polyethylene glycol, typically referred to as Macrogol.
Takes a couple of hours of continuous sipping, close to 1 liter total for an adult to get everything flushed, then you'll be discharging almost clear fluid by the end.
A bit dramatic, considering these are widely food additives to things like gummy bears in similar amounts and stories abound about their effect.
A one time event is unlikely to do too much damage unless you’re already sick.
People should generally not be taking laxatives repeatedly for a prolonged period unless they have a prescribed indication.
> an osmotically balanced solution of polyethylene glycol, typically referred to as Macrogol.
It’s quite common in the US to do plain old miralax and G2 gatorade for outpatient colon prep. There is some controversy about this. But there isn’t much evidence that “osmotically balanced” (the whole concept of osmotic balance is suspect for an osmotic laxative - that works because of its inherent imbalance) has any meaningful benefit other than selling something that sounds good with little evidence.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/21217-miralax...
People that get into trouble are typically abusing laxatives or have chronic kidney, liver or heart disease that put them at risk.
Does was 24 grams. For reference, a 12 ounce can of coke has 39 grams of sugar.
However, this was not a double blind study, so mileage my vary.
As in, if it tastes sweet but is not absorbed in the small intestine, so has "no calories", it will inevitably all pass on to the large intestine where it can be fermented.
As someone who absolutely hates the synthetic taste of aspartame etc. but has to stay on a low-FODMAP diet, I've just resigned to eating stuff with ordinary sugar and using sufficient moderation.
We got a Ninja Creami, it's not a traditional ice cream maker, you freeze these pint cups, then run them through the machine and it shaves it then blends it. My preferred recipe is: a quarter cup 0% yogurt, 2-4tbs allulose, pinch of xantham gum, the remainder fruit (strawberry, blueberry, canned low sugar pears or mandarin oranges or pineapple or peaches). This is delicious, low calorie (140-240cal per pint), and low sugar. It hits all the "ice cream" centers in my brain.
My wife takes it much fancier, she will make a vanilla base, and then often make low sugar mix ins (fudge, choc chips, caramel (with allulose), peanut butter cups (with PB2), marshmallows).
The Creami is noisy as hell for 3 minutes, and I wasn't sure how much we'd actually use it, but we've used it a lot. We got it on sale, about half price, which made it easier. Woot sometimes has them about this price (more like $100 than $200). One down side is that you basically have to re-blend it every time you want some, the remains largely freeze back into solid, though if you hit it with the microwave for 20 seconds you can kind of chunk it up and eat the flakes. Not really ice cream at that point.
For reference, here's one place that sells it in the uk [0]. It's made in the UK as well.
Directions are:
Take 2g of Powder approximately 30 minutes before main meals.
[0] https://www.sweetcures.co.uk/products/l-arabinose-original-p...
This is a non-issue on my laptop where the cursor is quite visible and precise.
[1] Writing this post encouraged me to experiment. I guess if you vote up, you get an option to "unvote" but if you accidentally downvote, the option is to "undown". So there is more visible feedback about your vote than I was aware of. I will probably look for that going forward to ensure my voting intention was properly registered. But it's not super-obvious.
(edit: I don’t know if it’s available on android, though. I’m an iphone user myself.)
"..but cannot be used by living organisms as a source of energy because it cannot be phosphorylated by hexokinase, the first enzyme in the glycolysis pathway. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Glucose
EDIT: Ok, yeah, sorry. I'm sure some bacteria out there could do something with it and make you have an upset stomach. But it's not very likely.
For example:
> l-Glucose was also found to be a laxative
But if youre in the lab and thinking about it could ya whip us up some C-F eating/mineralizing micros? Talk about whats poisoning the biosphere..
Given the above, I would guess that there's no link at all between the two. I could just be very wrong or behind the times.
It is the year 316720, and the majority of intergallactic trade is in left-handed and right-handed sugar.
Is there a calorie-free fructose isomer?
When you ingest something that you can't digest directly, there is a good chance that some bacteria in your guy can. And when they do, they multiply, this process is often faster than most people realize.
The problem rarely are the bacteria themselves, but the byproducts of their own metabolism, that can be benign is trace quantities and harmful in larger quantities.
The immune system also constantly monitors and reacts to those byproducts and bacteria population.
What we usually call Lactose intolerance or Gluten sensitivity is in practice an indirect effect of some species of bacteria digesting those, and then the reaction of your immune system.
Overall, the gut microbiome is a fascinating and complex subject, unfortunately often oversimplified or misunderstood.
As an example, we've often been told to eat more fibers to increase "flow", the flow increase is because the fibers are digested by bacteria and the mild toxicity of the process forces the digestive system to flush everything.
Same with Sorbitol (contained in dried prunes and often used as a soft laxative) but even more toxic.
Very interesting.
Can you maybe refer to some text(s) about this phenomenon of mild toxicity from digestion of fibers?
Do you have any more information on this "mild toxicity"? That does not sound like a healthy reaction to me.
My understanding was health experts encourage insoluble fiber more than anything, precisely because it is essentially inert — not digestable or fermented by microflora — and therefore merely adds bulk to the waste, which helps move stuff through the gut. Are you talking about soluble fiber and prebiotics?
This isn't an accurate portrayal of the benefits of fiber. The laxative effects of fiber are just one of many benefits. For example, Fiber can bind to saturated fats, disabling the negative affects of them. Specifically, in terms of bacteria, many bacteria digest fiber, which in turn creates short chain fatty acids, which have many health benefits.
You're right about one thing, though: this is indeed a complex subject.
About 10 years ago I switched overnight from a very meat heavy diet to mostly plant based (I still eat dairy products and one or two servings of fish per week).
Within a week I was shocked at how well my digestive tract was suddenly working. Before that I had no idea how broken it was.
All other factors aside, I could never go back to the slow, uncomfortable digesting process of a typical USA meat heavy diet.
I now eat mostly red meats and my gut has never worked better.
When I was vegan I had constant GI issues to the point of multiple hospitalizations.
Everyone is different.
Granted, I can't entirely separate the effects of ketosis in and of itself from an overall cleaner diet with more vegetables and fewer processed foods. It's possible that the same diet with butter swapped out for quinoa would have yielded a similar result.
As far as sweeteners, my go-to is liquid stevia, which I use about 1/5 a cup of daily. When I need a solid sweetener (e.g. for baking), I use inulin fiber sweetened with stevia and monk fruit, which creates a nicer texture than actual sugar IMO. I also have allulose on hand for specific use cases (e.g. caramelizing), but I can't really stomach it in large quantities. I don't particularly like or recommend sugar alcohols for any purpose, but erythritol is the the least bad of the bunch.
The added benefit is that my diet is much higher in protein and lower in carbs, which definitely has helped me build and maintain muscle and reduce dad bod.
Again, just annecdata, but maybe individuals have differing nutritional profiles that work best for them?
The goal is to keep your microbiota as far as possible to a monoculture.
I am absolutely not an expert on this subject, but so far, my understanding is that there are not really "healthy" bacteria, there are only healthy mixes where different species balances and keep the other from growing.
Citation?
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/lactose-intolerance/causes/
"Bacteria in the colon break down the lactose, producing fatty acids and gases like carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane.
The breakdown of the lactose in the colon, and the resulting acids and gases that are produced, cause the symptoms of lactose intolerance, such as flatulence and bloating."
In practice, your reaction to lactose is difficult to predict, regardless of your production of lactase.
What does impairing glycemic response mean, exactly?
A healthy person should have no problem maintaining blood sugar level except for very extreme situations (like running a marathon). Impaired response suggests then some kind of underlying problem.
It seems to me that an "impaired" glycemic response is what is actually desired, but the word "impaired" has negative connotations. It might be typical usage in a journal article, but it is not for an article in Science.
Insulin is not a bad thing, high blood glucose is.
When there is no need to immediately use glucose as a fuel (like when exercising), insulin is secreted. It acts as a signal to the rest of the body to remove glucose from the bloodstream and store it (as glycogen or fat). Without insulin (and without exercise), blood glucose levels would be too high for a long time.
Otherwise it's misleading and not surprising at all.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Impaired-glycemic-respon...
[2] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9?_re...
Blood glucose is actively regulated by your body via relying on glycogen storage and breakdown in the muscles and liver, in healthy humans this system reacts quickly to maintain a constant blood glucose level (required for say, active brain function). See figure 1 in this review (pdf) of glycogen-related inherited diseases for an overview of how it's supposed to work (it's all tied into the cellular Krebs, aka tricarboxylic acid, cycle):
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph-Wolfsdorf/public...
Practically speaking, flooding your bloodstream with sugar (soft drinks, candy) seems to overwhelm the normal functioning of that system, but when you eat more complex carbohydrates which are slowly digested (potatoes, bread, pasta, etc.) this results in a steady but slow input of sugars to the bloodstream via the digestive system, which, depending on your resting energy level, will be either stored as glycogen or fed into the Krebs cycle for cellular energy conversion.
> change in blood glucose content (glycemic response)
then does that mean an impaired response is higher or does it mean it's lower?
Stevia and Glucose groups both increased plasma insulin. Contrasted with Saccharine and Sucralose which, the authors suggest, blunted insulin release and thus increased blood sugar. They cite a paper indicating that combined NNS and caloric sweeteners increase the insulin response compared with a NNS itself.
So... both..? It's a disproportion. NNS should have negligible impact on blood sugar to be called "inert", either when paired or when not, regardless of whether glucose is present or not. Addition is changing the whole formula. They're saying it's fucking up the signal interpretation. At least that's what I've put together.
thing effect on plasma insulin gut result
glucose baseline increase standard
g+sucralose increase less than baseline altered
g+stevia baseline increase altered
g+aspartame baseline increase altered
So, in this context, that means we got increased blood sugar because of the lower plasma insulin? Okay. I think I understand now.
are saccharin and sucralose good (benign) sweeteners?
or is stevia a good (benign) sweetener?
More accurate word choice would be "less bad".
I don't believe dietary science knows of a benign sweetener at this time.
Kind of like the situation with alcohol; there's some that are worse than others, none that are beneficial, none that are neutral.
My wife and I have the same dietary regime when we need to lose weight - but I exercise, and she does not. We do 0-calorie alternate day fasting + strict keto on the eating days. I do quite a bit of fasted cardio - I cycle to the office 3 days per week, on my fasting days, and thats 3x72km of cycling over hard terrain and usually in the wind.
I am around 6-9 mmol/l on fasting days and 3-4 mmol/l on keto days, and she - same diet, but no exercise - is around 1.5-2 mmol/l on fasting days and 0.5-1mmol/l on keto days. All measured around 6pm when our ketone bodies are usually at their highest levels.
We reach those levels at around 3-4 weeks of following the diet. (We use this diet every year in the autumn, to burn what we gained over the summer of beer, eating out and other indulgences).
A few other differences: - fasted cardio means I get to maintain high ketone body concentrations through the night and in the morning. I routinely get 5-6mmol/l at 7am following the fasting+cycling days. - fasted cardio makes me very satiated the following day; I eat a very small keto breakfast and can't stand the sight of food till the evening. I maintain high ketosis through the day and have no problem with energy levels. Weird. - i have very low blood sugar, at around 2-3mmol/l on the fasting+cycling days. First few days are hard, then it's getting easier and easier.
I did ADF and ADF+keto many times in my life, usually for 2-3 months, and it always works, but only when I added long, steady-state fasted cardio did I start to experience those very high levels of ketone body concentrations. It was very scary at first, but nothing bad happened.
For comparison, while doing a multi-day fast - the longest I did was 82 hours - I am reaching something like 3mmol/l and feel very miserable throughout (not physically, but mentally). Short fasts (36hr) and keto are significantly easier. Weight drops very, very quickly.
I’m tempted to comment on your seasonal health swings, but to each their own.
Anecdotally, switching from full-sugar soda to diet has been a hugely beneficial change to my own health. Would water be better? Maybe, but I’ll settle for harm reduction.
I think that depends on how much it takes to have this effect. If the equivalent of one diet soda every couple days (the doses in the article seemed pretty small to me?) is acting like a kind of pesticide, even in small doses, and killing a lot of calorie-eating gut flora, the harm might exceed the benefit. On the other hand if the artificial sweetener is replacing the sugar in 64+oz of soda per day rather than 16ish oz every couple days, sure, the benefits probably overwhelm any harm.
The problem with artificial sweeteners is that we have “taste buds” for sweet in our intestines, and there’s a theory that reacting to that increases absorption, so your body pulls more carbs from French fries you ate with your Diet Coke.
This is likely a big part of why lecturing people about CICO is such a dick move.
“Calories” in food are net calories, not gross calories. We didn’t calculate the calories in bread by burning it in a sensor chamber. We got it by isolating volunteers, measuring the energy in their food versus the energy in their poop, assuming the rest ends up in your body.
But of course any heat generated by gut microbes might be shed, and the hydrogen bonds in your burps are also lost calories.
I was a very gassy person when I was a young beanpole. Not so much anymore.
The provision is that you can’t outrun a bad diet by exercising a half hour a day. That 30 minutes is a number doctors settled on not to scare sedentary people into not starting an exercise program. You really need an hour or more a day.
I’m trying to get my walk route down to 90 minutes, in prep for a half marathon next year. If I stop for a matcha at the halfway point, I’ve still burned well over twice what I consumed. If I get the smoothie still come out ahead.
The real “secret” there is that when I watch TV I nibble. Not getting food on books is the only reason I don’t nibble when reading. What I’ve done in a 90 minute walk is to forestall eating more than one single thing in that ninety minutes. And lowered my stress level. Cortisol is the other killer here.
Even before that the nearest good coffee shop was a mile away and my net calories were ~100. If I avoided a certain cream based beverage.
For some people, banning prepared foods does a similar thing. Preparing a snack takes fifteen minutes instead of fifteen seconds. You just don’t have as much time in the day to stuff your face once the convenience is gone.
The other aphorism is that you lose weight at the grocery store, which I do believe. If you come home with fruit instead of pie and chips you’ve already fought half the battle.
If you dont care about health or improvment in things like strength stamina, then the "dont exercise it is waste" knee jerk response makes some sense. If you care about health, it does not at all.
To your point on mood: there’s definitely a feedback loop or three there. Once you say “fuck it” a lot of things unravel and everything spirals. Better mood means more chores get done, which is both more exercise and improves self image and mood. Being happier about the mirror does the same thing.
Before the pandemic I wanted to walk a 10k. Now that’s practically my baseline, and new goals I wouldn’t allow myself are popping up. You can get a lot of places in 10k round trip, especially if you aren’t a sweaty mess on the other end. That’s 75% of the way to downtown for me.
There doesn’t seem to be any good studies about that. Anecdotally, as someone who has been drinking 2-3 liters of Diet Coke or Coke Zero daily for over two decades, I haven’t experienced such an effect.
Anecdotes don’t mean shit for public policy.
And is this even an anecdote? Were you overweight before you started drinking diet and now you’re not, with no other lifestyle changes? Food? Mood? Exercise?
Right, and so yours doesn’t either.
My point is, the theory that artificial sweeteners somehow cause more “net” calorie intake doesn’t have much grounded evidence. Presenting it as a likely truth is fallacious.
Mine is "I stopped doing something and something good happened (3x)". I did a lot of single variable experiments on myself during that phase of my life. I didn't stop soda and start exercising. I was too 'lazy' for that, but it was more informative.
Anecdotes are lousy for public policy but they're great for research grants. Except for accidental discoveries, most medical advances come from looking at clusters of people or animals or microbes that don't behave the way you thought they would. Those are anecdotes, and the cause-effect variety are much easier to spot.
How much increased absorption are we talking about? If I don't drink a can of Coke containing 150 calories of pure sugar, and instead drink a Diet Coke with basically 0 calories, are you saying that my gut is going to somehow grab 150 calories that it would have otherwise ignored?
2020 - "future studies should consider the metabolic pathways of different artificial sweeteners. Further (long-term) human research investigating the underlying physiological pathways of different artificial sweeteners on microbiota alterations and its related metabolic pathway is warranted to evaluate the potential impact of their use on body weight control and glucose homeostasis."
One of the American Ninja Warriors last season wore an insulin pump. While competing. I’ve since noticed pictures of a few competitive runners with them.
Weight and metabolic function are correlated, not equivalent.
0.https://www.publichealthpost.org/research/can-sugar-substitu...
Incidentally, when I drink diet soft drinks now they taste like chemicals. Completely unnatural sweetness. I don't find them enjoyable at all. But when I used to drink them daily, I liked them, really almost craved them.
It's not that hard after several years of changing your eating habits slowly.
It helps that I've always preferred drinking water.
But it's probably harder for your body to deal with being both overweight and having a weird gut biome simultaneously.
edit: this is wrong, see reply below
> Random-effects summary all-cause mortality HRs for overweight (BMI of 25–<30), obesity (BMI of ≥30), grade 1 obesity (BMI of 30–<35), and grades 2 and 3 obesity (BMI of ≥35) were calculated relative to normal weight (BMI of 18.5–<25).
Some studies show extra mortality in normal to underweight people, including from common causes relevant to average people, but there's also a ton of work on calorie restriction?
Is low BMI dangerous, or does it just commonly go along with a lifestyle that might lead to injuries and rhabdomyolysis and a case of diarrhoea in a place without hospitals?
It would be interesting to see adventurousness treated as a separate category for controls.
In the past there was no fridge, people stored their own energy, and there was no pepper spray and cops and forklifts, exercise programs had the extra constraint of physical activity being directly needed to survive.
What amount and type of activity should a modern person who has reason to believe they'll probably never be in a serious fair fight with no weapons or need to walk 3 days to get help do?
How much should someone eat when they do not ever plan to drink untreated water or go somewhere away from medical help if they catch some parasite that causes rapid weight loss?
Is the ideal profile of nutrition changed for someone who will not be exposed to woodsmoke, bacterial illness, etc?
And then furthermore, if higher BMI isn't helpful by itself, what should people who ARE in poverty or otherwise exposed to more stresses do?
Is there a subgroup that needs a metabolic reserve? Should those people eat less to save money and be able to DoorDash if needed and have external reserves like people without poverty or adventurousness?
Or is there a real independent benefit to some level of fat?
Higher BMI can simply mean more athletic.
I wish we could tell!
The way they lump them all together feels really odd to me.
It would be like a report saying non-hydrocarbon vehicles are bad for reason X. Why would anyone but the sugar industry care about all the different substitutes for sugar in such an undifferentiated way?
> They make sure to note that they’re not calling for consumption of sugar instead, because excess sugar is absolutely, positively linked to adverse health effects.
I think they care about the substitutes because that's an area where the harm is often debated and much is still unknown. They don't seem to be suggesting that sugar is preferable in any way.
Probably. However those outcomes can be achieved in ways that don't involve sugar substitutes (eg question implies a false dichotomy).
I’m not sure what the pathology is there, other than hitting starvation cycles if you get certain illnesses, and possibly bone density.
It's possible that becoming overweight could cause a gut flora change, or a gut flora change could make you likely to become overweight.
There's no benefit to ending research into diabetes after you find an association between overweight and diabetes, or in making an assumption that the condition of one's gut flora and being overweight are independent.
If you put me in that dilemma, I would choose the artificial sweeteners every single time. So yes. Diets are difficult enough.
But...
Although I distrust all the studies that seem to nudge me into stopping dieting, and the article mentions some of them that are now discredited or impossible to reproduce, I don't simply ignore them. Maybe it's "Big Sugar", as a fellow HNer called it, but maybe not.
Flora disruption seems very real to me. I had to quit Coke years ago (don't ask) and now I've quit sodas alltogether. I don't like coffee, but fortunately caffeine is sold in pills, and much cheaper.
I mention soda specifically because that's what kept me needing sweeteners. Now I drink only water, beer when out with friends, and tea, that unless I'm actively trying to lose weight, I have with one cube or nothing.
This study isn't saying that everyone should stop eating artificial-sweetners. It is saying that the previous understanding that artificial sweeteners are biologically inert and risk free.
This study shows that we need to do further research to understand what the gut biome changes entail. It also suggests that we should be a more circumspect about replacing sugars in our diet without worrying about trying to reduce our overall desire for sweet foods / drinks.
The famous JAMA article from 2013 that everyone likes to cite, including in comments below, showed no significant increase in death rate for grade 1 obesity and the effects really kicked in strongly around grade 2 and 3 obesity.
The more recent BMJ article from 2016 that no one wants to cite, showed minimum death rate in the 20-24 BMI range depending on smoking history. That paper reported the most reliable looking studies of 'non-smokers followed up for over 20 years' had a minimum total death rate at a BMI around 20-22, but that does not support the "Healthy at Every Size" narrative so its memoryholed.
I try to keep up to date on diet and supplement journal articles; there's probably journal articles newer than 2016 thats not in my notes yet.
Something EVERY study seems to agree on is the death-curve looks very U shaped kind of like computer chip hardware failure rates. The point being that studies disagree on the exact minima death rate vs BMI which is only relevant for large scale population goals, however they all agree that going from, perhaps, 22 to 23 will have an effect that although possibly measurable if across enough people, will tiny and be deep in the decimal places, whereas going from "twenties" to "forties" for BMI means the patient is unquestionably going to die very young, although EXACTLY how young may vary from study to study.
The problem with BMI of course is it was originally a screening criteria to "find the worst quartile and counsel them" but as happens with all metrics over time eventually the rough and imprecise low resolution screening criteria turned into an "optimize for its own sake" metric and people getting very weird and hyperfocused about their personal metric calculated to five sig figs at least.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566
> I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years ago I imported a kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai.
And https://www.amazon.com/T-Miles-Neotame-Sweetener-Beverages-P...
(This has actually been known for at least 3 or 4 years.)
The thing about the GI changes in the mice in interesting but I really want more details on the bacteria changes!
> Collectively, our study suggests that commonly consumed NNS [non-nutritive sweeteners] may not be physiologically inert in humans as previously contemplated, with some of their effects mediated indirectly through impacts exerted on distinct configurations of the human microbiome.
In other words, these sweeteners can alter gut bacteria in humans, each person can have a different reaction, and the consequences of these changes are largely unknown.
* Personalized microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance, https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9
* Artificial Sweeteners Negatively Regulate Pathogenic Characteristics of Two Model Gut Bacteria, E. coli and E. faecalis, https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/10/5228
* Artificial sweeteners and risk of cardiovascular diseases: results from the prospective NutriNet-Santé cohort, https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071204
These are all from different countries.
For whatever reason, 4 years ago, I became super sensitive to aspartame. It would make me hyperalert like a more subtle version of caffeine. I had insmonia for random days. It took me forever to isolate it to aspartame, since I've never had a problem, nor suspected there could even be a problem. I don't have pku but it is what it is. Sucralose, stevia, regular sugar still fine. Bodies are weird. I still believe in science but the older I get, the more I give credence that in some people things just work differently. I don't just jump to the conclusion that they're making something up just because official scienctific papers say it's 99.999% safe.
I mostly stick to soda water (only carbon dioxide, no flavorings) these days.
I'd bet there are digestion processes that "start up" in response to taste. Maybe your body detected that stevia was regularly "starting up" one of these processes and then withholding the expected glucose spike, and got upset about the pattern
That's phenylalanine. Its metabolites are interesting.
One of them is tyrosine, which itself is the precursor to dopamine and adrenaline.
Another is phenethylamine. That's a fun class of drugs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_phenethylamine
Phenethylamine itself becomes N-Methylphenethylamine, not at all dissimilar to its structural isomer, A-Methylphenethylamine, better known as amphetamine.
How much phenylalanine is metabolized into each of these is complicated and depends on a lot of things, but sounds like you did something to cause it to be more.
and there are plenty of instancess where gut microbiome changes are known to be impactful. my partner got SIBO which caused lots of problems for a few months and she was basically unable to eat anything.
What's the takeaway from that? Sucralose (Splenda) has long been my sweetener of choice. I prefer the taste over actual sugar in many things.
Should I be avoiding it? Is that impaired glycemic response a bad thing I should be worried about?
I could also easily down 1.5 litres of sugar free Pepsi MAX in an afternoon. On the other hand a can of sugar coke is more ... satiating? Can't drink EU-Pepsi at all, because even the sugar version has the two horsemen of the fartocalypse in it =(
Also, nearly every product that is labeled as low sugar has them. I make my own fruit spritzers with 1 part fruit juice and 4 parts soda water. Plenty sweet for me...
They're fantastic. They use dates and honey for sweetness, with whey from happy grass-fed Irish cows. And they're not even much more expensive than the awful alternatives.
But I hope the trend of companies like spindrift keeps increasing. low sugar, no articicial sweetners.
I spent one evening last week on reviewing the role of sugar substitutes in diabetes prevention. Sadly, it seems that most of them, except for perhaps Xylitol, mess with our insulin response. I decided to starting to cut down on my Coke Zero, but it is a struggle...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3337124/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30747427/
Or put differently: everyone who chugs diet soda seems to be weirdly skinny or weirdly fat, so there is clearly some microbiome effect going on.
You notice the weirdly skinny or fat, then notice what they drink.
Anyway, it's definitely not true in this case. I notice the very unusual instance of people drinking soda because it's so rare these days (among my extended social circle). In some cases I _hear_ about it before I meet the person ("my bf drinks like a liter of soda a day" or whatever) -- and then meet them and, unsurprisingly, they're weirdly skinny or fat.
But my "counter-evidence" would simply be me saying "Well, I don't see that". To which you would respond that it was actually I who wasn't being observant. When there is no real way to determine that. And that discussion itself is intellectually bankrupt.
My pointing out that your recollection of casual observations and your self-assessment of how well you "took the bias into consideration" is debate. I'm questioning the source of your statistics.
Because even in this study, it's from 120 people. Total. Who self-reported they had never had artificial sweeteners.
And the other obvious thing is that you are also free to ignore my opinions. I like to mention when someone is offering biased anecdotes in place of substantive discussion. In case it resonates.
I'm not claiming you should draw any universal conclusions from my anecdotes! That's absurd. But there has got to be something between 'data is from a study' and 'data is meaningless'.
The one claim I have made that you should believe, though, is that I (and others, evidently) was expecting the surprise to be that science found artificial sweeteners to have no effect, since my prior for it mattering was so high. I was surprised that this result was a surprise to anyone.
It's also a lot like the "bad toupee" effect. You think you're good at spotting toupees because you always notice when they're bad. But you don't notice when they're good, therefore they don't even factor into your dataset.
Which is why anecdotes are never data. There's no way to control the data coming in. And the filters we have on the data coming in are sometimes unknown.
I've never really seen a study on artificial sweeteners that ever propose an actual mechanism. And without fail, the study is done on rodents or rely on self-reporting to some degree or on very small sample sizes.
I don't have to present my own observations to point out flaws in your own observations. It's not a contest where "most observations" win or whatever.
Overweight person A drinks diet soda because they struggle with losing weight and use it to avoid drinking calories.
Underweight person B drinks diet soda because they have body image issues and/or a mild-to-severe ED and are afraid to gain weight.
Other things might influence to a degree, but the main problem is always going to be caloric in nature.
So yeah, I have a weight issue, and I'm diet soda drinker, but for me, at least, you had the cause and effect reversed.
incidentally as a person who did not grow up drinking soda, it's sickeningly sweet to me. It bothers me a lot, also, that it is actually much sweeter than it tastes due to the carbonation -- if you drink a flat soda you get a better impression of what you're "really" drinking, which is basically just watered-down syrup.
Oh no, what will the food industry that got us addicted to sugar will do ?
Reading this thread has sent me right back there.
Even a world-class nutritionist can't tell you what their effect on you will be with certainty. The only way to be sure is to cut them out of your diet for 6 weeks or so and see what happens.
On the rare occasion when I get Diet Coke at a restaurant, it has a really nasty taste because they add saccharine in the fountain version. Compared to the canned version which uses only aspartame, the fountain version is almost undrinkable.
No shit Science? This is reasoned discourse?
One of the most critical components of our world-wide health system, sugar and diabetes. And this is the response.
It makes it difficult to truly (no fucking pun intended) assess risk in life.
This isn't about cheap rebellion. That's not the relationship you build for.
One reason of hundreds.
No, I'm not a bot. Hello.
So, how can I make that without killing the crowd? That's the question of the day.
Is stevia a decent substitute for sugar? Is sugar ok if consumed on weekends only? I know, silly questions.
And then we get Jenny McCarthy provoking editorials, targeting the people who could use knowledgeable advice.
And years later, we'll be lectured on bad decisions.
Not that much of a surprise actually.
I love it, and insulin and allulose. Not sure why people are obsessed with the nasty shit like stevia, monk fruit, or blue agave...
The only downsides are that it doesn't work quite the same as sugar in cooking, some are sensitive to it, and if you overdo it there can allegedly be some runny side-effects.
Another option that needs to be studied a bit more but seems safe so far is allulose, which is nice for baking since it will actually brown and doesn't have the cooling effect erythritol has.
Researchers expressing bias like this (or the opposite as well) should be disqualified. Science is factual, not emotional nor invective.
But sweetener maxis often say the gut bacteria effect is unproven, so every good study there helps.
they increase/change intestinal microbiota. tbd what that means.
The answer: just indulge your sweet tooth, if you have one, but be real moderate about it. A quarter tsp of sugar in the coffee, just a couple cookies after dinner. And so forth.
And quit drinking soda, period. Get carbonated water if you have to have those bubbles. Don't eat between meals.
Next case.