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Q: I’m wondering about the safety of artificial sweeteners like Splenda and whether diet sodas can cause weight gain?
A: There is a lot of conflicting information. As a consumer it becomes extremely challenging to sort fact from fiction. One of the things I gleaned from my reading was that there seems to be an element of economics running through it all. The industry of artificial sweeteners is definitely big business. I would suggest you do what I do and google Splenda.
Each one of us has to draw our own conclusions on this one. My own personal belief is that the closer to nature a food is, the better it is for you. I choose to use no foods with Splenda or other artificial sweeteners in them. My child eats nothing with artificial sweeteners in them.
We have found that maple syrup, honey, sucanat and stevia are great alternatives (which you can find at local Co-ops or Whole Foods). Of course, nothing is ever simple. There is even conflict surrounding stevia. Again, my personal conclusion is that I am more comfortable using stevia than artificial sweeteners. The liquid tastes the best. It can help people wean themselves off pop. Try a few drops of the flavored liquid stevia in some sparkling water.
In reference to your question, does diet soda contribute to weight gain? Here is a very interesting article.
Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?
Overweight Risk Soars 41% With Each Daily Can of Diet Soft Drink
By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Charlotte Grayson, MD
on Monday, June 13, 2005
June 13, 2005 -- People who drink diet soft drinks don't lose weight. In fact, they gain weight, a new study shows.
The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.
"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."
In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.
"There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.
More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain
Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.
For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
- 26% for up to 1/2 can each day
- 30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
- 32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
- 47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
- 36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
- 37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
- 54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
- 57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%.
Diet Soda No Smoking Gun
Fowler is quick to note that a study of this kind does not prove that diet soda causes obesity. More likely, she says, it shows that something linked to diet soda drinking is also linked to obesity.
"One possible part of the explanation is that people who see they are beginning to gain weight may be more likely to switch from regular to diet soda," Fowler suggests. "But despite their switching, their weight may continue to grow for other reasons. So diet soft-drink use is a marker for overweight and obesity."
Why? Nutrition expert Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, puts it in a nutshell.
"You have to look at what's on your plate, not just what's in your glass," Bonci tells WebMD.
People often mistake diet drinks for diets, says Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and nutrition consultant to college and professional sports teams and to the Pittsburgh Ballet.
"A lot of people say, 'I am drinking a diet soft drink because that is better for me. But soft drinks by themselves are not the root of America's obesity problem," she says. "You can't go into a fast-food restaurant and say, 'Oh, it's OK because I had diet soda.' If you don't do anything else but switch to a diet soft drink, you are not going to lose weight."
The Mad Hatter Theory
"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."
"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "It's very easy to take more than nothing." Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
There is actually a way that diet drinks could contribute to weight gain, Fowler suggests.
She remembers being struck by the scene in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in which Alice is offended because she is offered tea but is given none -- even though she hadn't asked for tea in the first place. So she helps herself to tea and bread and butter.
That may be just what happens when we offer our bodies the sweet taste of diet drinks, but give them no calories. Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar.
"If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn't there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered," Fowler says.
Perhaps, Bonci says, our bodies are smarter than we think.
"People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled," she says. "If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite."
SOURCES: Fowler, S.P. 65th Annual Scientific Sessions, American Diabetes Association, San Diego, June 10-14, 2005; Abstract 1058-P. Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, University of Texas Health Science Center School of Medicine, San Antonio. Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, director, sports nutrition, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. WebMD News: "Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts." "Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts." Davidson, T.L. International Journal of Obesity, July 2004; vol 28: pp 933-955.
Q: Are your vendor’s supplements whole Foods?
Here is a response from our vendor’s research department.
A: While some companies label their products as "whole food supplements," this has no legal definition, and has therefore been used quite loosely by marketers of dietary supplements. While it is the intention of some marketers to lead consumers to believe that nutritional products can be made by condensing or compressing whole foods into efficacious, nutritional tidbits, such a result is impossible. (1 Vitamin and Mineral Safety. Council for Responsible Nutrition. 1997. Pg. 5.)
Consider that a supplement condensed or compressed from a whole food would contain little nutrient value, and would require taking an inordinately large number of servings or tablets to get even one serving with adequate nutritional value. Take spinach, for example. If we consider a reasonable serving size for spinach to be one cup of cooked spinach, the spinach in that serving would weigh approximately 180 grams. Dried and made into a powder, it would weigh about 30 grams. Since a normal-sized tablet holds about a half gram of powder, at best to get the equivalent of a cup of cooked spinach, you would need to consume a minimum of 60 tablets.
When you think about it, anything not fresh off the plant, tree, or vine is less than natural because something must happen between the time raw ingredients are harvested and put into an end product that provides benefit for the consumer. So a good working definition of "natural" would be "as close to nature as possible with the least amount of processing needed to deliver claimed nutrients." We are committed to providing the purest and most bio-available nutrients derived from naturally occurring sources whenever possible. Our founder once said, "True, no one can improve upon nature’s nutrition, but we can improve upon the methods used by man to capture nature’s values." Accordingly, while our vendor seeks to use the finest natural sources for its formulations, we also recognize the beneficial advances in food technology that make available highly bio-potent nutrient sources where nature has not provided them.
Perhaps a more important issue for consumers than going back and forth on the meaning of such terms as "natural" and "whole foods," might be the scientific basis and actual nutritional value of food and nutritional supplements. We are proud that our vendor's products are based on sound science and bring benefits to our consumers. It is where our vendor distinguishes itself from competitors. When appropriate, they conduct clinical studies to ensure product safety and support efficacy. Their studies have been published in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The American Journal of Cardiology and others. These journals are available in publicand medical libraries across the nation. Suffice it to say, our aim is to provide the best products of their kind, and we believe we do a good job of that. If you have evidence that a competitor does a better job, we’d be interested in seeing supporting data.
