Do Artificial Sweeteners Help You Lose Weight?

Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen posted this fascinating article, “Sugar vs. Artificial Sweeteners: Which Is Healthier and Safer?” on the RealAge YOU Docs Daily blog. The two popular doctors coauthored the best-selling YOU books. If you are eating foods with artificial sweeteners, they can have a negative impact on your health and may actually cause you to gain weight, not lose weight!

“In fact, sweeteners have been studied far more than most drugs (there’ve been at least 100 studies on sucralose/Splenda alone). The problem is that they subtly mess with how you react to food.

• Sometimes it’s a mind game. For instance, diet sodas can cloud common sense, making you think your no-cal drink “cancels out” the fat calories in burgers and fries.

• Sometimes they make you eat more, not less. Because no-cal sweeteners essentially don’t register in your brain’s satiety center, instead of satisfying a sweet craving they can send you hunting for something else . . . and then something else. They also train your taste buds to go PING only when they detect intense sweetness.

• Sometimes there’s something going on no one even understands yet. Recent Texas research has linked drinking diet soda to bigger waists—70% bigger than in people who didn’t touch the stuff. “Huh?” That’s what we said. More to come on this. But Dr. Mike, who used to drink a daily diet cola (or six), is glad he gave ‘em all up over a year ago.”

There’s also evidence that fake sugars and diet sodas don’t help you lose weight, and up your risk of metabolic syndrome, which precedes diabetes, heart disease, and more. So it’s hard to be enthusiastic about them.”