Mercola Natural Health Blog

People drink diet soda because it has fewer or no calories, making it seem ideal for weight loss, especially for those who can’t completely give up soda.

But the truth is, diet soda may actually promote weight gain. A recent study reveals that artificial sweeteners, which are used in many low-calorie food products, including diet soda, may impair how your brain processes sweetness and caloric intake.

Researchers at Purdue University found that using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, increased adiposity, diminished caloric compensation and blunted thermic responses to sweet-tasting diets.

In simpler terms, this means that foods containing artificial sweeteners hamper vital bodily functions, which may result in increased body weight and obesity, natural health expert Joseph Mercola explains.

When you consume something sweet, you’re sending a signal to your body that it’s getting calories for metabolic energy. Since foods using artificial sweeteners represent fewer calories and less metabolic energy, your brain will want you to consume more and more sweetness to satisfy the craving.

It’s pretty much the same in humans. In an experiment, 12 women were given water sweetened with either real sugar (sucrose) or the artificial sweetener sucralose (Splenda).  The sugar and Splenda, which are identical in taste, both activated the taste and pleasure pathways in the brain. However, while sugar stimulated the brain’s pleasure-related brain regions more extensively, Splenda on the other hand, inspired more activity between the regions in the reward system that encode the sensation of pleasantness.

This suggests that artificial sweeteners activate your brain’s reward system but does not satisfy it, and that there’s less of a feedback mechanism to stop the sugar craving.

Artificial sweeteners may fool your tastebuds but it will not trick your brain.

Another study warns that drinking diet soda can increase your risk of high blood pressure, levels of bad cholesterol and metabolic syndrome, which is characterized by a larger waist circumference, insulin resistance and obesity.

If you want to lose weight and improve your health dramatically, one of the most effective ways to do it is by reducing or completely eliminating sugar from your diet, Dr. Mercola advises. You should also avoid artificial sweeteners because they are no better than sugar and are potentially dangerous to your health.

There are no shortcuts to good health and losing weight. But the simple act of avoiding what’s bad for you, in this case, avoiding sugar and artificial sweeteners, can go a long way.

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