If you have added the artificial sweetener sucralose (brand Splenda) to your diet because you consider it a healthy alternative to sugar, you are dangerously cheated.
The research of the Ramazzini Institute has linked the popular alternative to sugar with cancer, specifically leukemia.
In 2012, the results were presented for the first time at a cancer conference in London and requested the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) to download Splenda from its “safe” category to one of “caution”.
Now that the study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, the CSPI has again degraded the Splenda, this time from the category of “precaution” to “avoid”.
In a study conducted, the researchers fed the mice with Splenda from before their birth and continued like this throughout their lives.
A significantly higher number of cancerous tumors was observed in the male mice, and the risk was increased along with the dose
Splenda Found in 4 500 Products
If you want to follow the warnings and eliminate Splenda from your diet, consider that it is found in more than 4,500 products. Splenda has been commercialized with elegance, and is best known for its slogan “made with sugar, so it tastes like sugar”.
It has earned the reputation of being, in some way, safer than other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, which is why PepsiCo got rid of aspartame in their Diet Pepsi in 2015 and replaced it with Splenda.
Splenda became one of the best-selling artificial sweeteners in the United States in a very short period of time. Between 2000 and 2004, the percentage of US households that use products with Splenda shot up from 3% to 20%. For the year 2012, Splenda generated sales of almost 288 million dollars.
But make no mistake, Splenda is far from being natural, even though it technically starts as a sugar molecule. In the patented five-step process to make sucralose, three chlorine molecules are added to one molecule of sucrose or sugar.
This type of sugar molecule does not occur in nature, and therefore your body does not possess the ability to metabolize it properly. As a result of this “unique” biochemical composition, manufacturers claim that Splenda is not digested or metabolized by the body, which makes it have zero calories.
It is assumed that Splenda is easily discarded. However, the research (which was extrapolated mainly from animal studies) indicates that in fact, about 15% of sucralose is absorbed by the digestive system and is finally stored in your body.
If the probable cancer results are not enough to influence you away from this toxic artificial sweetener, be aware that Splenda could wreak havoc on your intestinal bacteria, which can have an incalculable number of consequences on your health.
For example, an animal study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, found that Splenda reduces the amount of beneficial bacteria in the intestines of rats by 50%, while also increasing the pH level.
Splenda Raises Insulin Levels
Far from being an inert substance, the research also shows that Splenda affects the insulin response in your body. When the study participants took a drink sweetened with Splenda, their insulin levels increased 20% higher than when they consumed only water before taking a glucose tolerance test.
Also, blood sugar levels peaked at the top level, “So the artificial sweetener was linked to a greater response to glucose and insulin in the blood,” the researchers said.
When you eat something sweet, your brain releases dopamine, which activates the brain’s reward center. The hormone leptin, the appetite regulator, is also released, which eventually informs your brain that you are “full” once you have consumed a certain amount of calories.
However, when you consume something that has a sweet taste but does not contain any calories, such as an artificial sweetener, your pleasure cerebral pathways are activated by the sweet taste, then there is nothing to deactivate it since the calories never arrive.
Basically, artificial sweeteners cheat the body into believing it will receive sugar (calories), but when the sugar does not go in, your body continues to signal that it needs more, which causes carbohydrate cravings.
Will There Be More Safe Artificial Sweeteners?
Two of the best sugar substitutes come from the vegetable kingdom: Stevia and Luo Han Guo (also spelled Luo Han Kuo). Stevia is a very sweet herb derived from the leaf of the stevia plant of South America, sold as a supplement. It is a safe supplement in its natural form and can be used to sweeten most dishes and drinks.
Luo Han Kuo is similar to Stevia, but it is a bit more expensive and harder to find. In China, Luo Han fruit has been used as a sweetener for centuries, and is about 200 times sweeter than sugar.
Source: Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), verazinforma
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