Man often tries to deceive nature, but every time it turns into a huge disappointment. Scientists have found that sugar substitutes, which seemed to be a successful work of chemical art, allowing you to enjoy your favorite sweet taste of diet drinks without any consequences for the harmony of the figure, can cause the exact opposite effect of the expected effect. In the high-risk group are lovers of industrially produced “zero-calorie” slimming drinks.
No sweet drink - no matter what specifically gives it the desired taste - can be considered beneficial to health. Israeli scientists are firmly convinced of this.
No sweet drink - no matter what specifically gives it the desired taste - can be considered beneficial to health. Israeli scientists are firmly convinced of this.
Sweeteners are wolves in sheep's clothing!
The international scientific journal Nature published the results of experiments by scientists from the Wisemann Institute (Israel), who asked one of the most important questions for a person of the 21st century: can soda on sweeteners, usually sold with the label “diet”, be considered a drink for weight loss, or artificial substitutes sugar only pretend to be our friends? Researchers are sure that with saccharin, sucralose and their analogues, both mice and people should keep their ears open if they want to stay slim and healthy.

“Our data suggest that sweeteners in diet drinks are driving an epidemic (obesity – ed.), although they were invented to combat it,” says the article in Nature.

How is this possible? Diet drinks are traditionally considered a sinless treat for dieters, because excess weight is unused calories, and if there are zero calories, then there are corresponding amounts of problems. Many well-known nutritionists (for example, the author of the popular diet Elena Malysheva) officially allow followers of their nutrition system to drink drinks with sweeteners, which may not contribute to weight loss, but, in theory, should not interfere with it.
But not everything is so simple. As Israeli scientists have found out, sugar substitutes are more insidious. As complex chemicals, they transform the intestinal microbiome (the population of bacteria inhabiting it), directly affecting the process of digestion of food and metabolism. At the same time, the principles of assimilation of simple carbohydrates by the body change, and the risk of metabolic disorders, excess weight, and even diabetes increases many times over. It is curious that different sweeteners (the most accessible and common ones were used in the experiments, including saccharin, sucralose, aspartame and others), with a huge difference in their chemical formulas, showed the same effect.
“We do not believe that firm conclusions about the use and dosage of sweeteners can already be drawn from the data obtained,” said Dr. Eran Sehgal, one of the authors of the publication in Nature. - But it is clear that artificial sweeteners, which are extremely widely used today, must be carefully studied. And I would like to emphasize especially: no sugary drink can benefit our health.”
This news can be called alarming for companies producing sweet soda, because it is in juice-water that sweeteners have found the most fertile ground for industrial use. Many products on the market are positioned as weight loss drinks. These are juice drinks or versions of famous citrus, fruit and tonic waters with sugar substitutes. It turns out that those who dream of losing weight and staying healthy should at least think before quenching their thirst with such liquids.
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Drink for weight loss: still water

How many times have they told the world, but we will not get tired of repeating: simple drinking water without gas is the best drink for weight loss! The H2O formula is firmly known even to those who skipped all chemistry lessons, as well as the fact that a person can live a maximum of 14 days without replenishing water supplies. Without water, normal metabolism is impossible, in addition, in the processes of restoration and construction of new cells, water is no less important than amino acids. A common mistake of losing weight is to confuse feelings of thirst and hunger; most often, the unstoppable desire to chew something is easily “treated” with a glass of water. On this principle, for example, the famous "diet for the lazy" is based. Important: do not drink during the day less than 1.5 liters of pure water in small portions (approximately 30 ml each), drink water at room temperature or lukewarm (cold water is evacuated by the body faster before being absorbed) and minimize the use of water with carbon dioxide, which irritates the esophagus and stomach walls, disrupts digestion and is often the cause of bloating and flatulence, which is not only not very useful, but also ugly.
Diabetes... with express delivery
The Israeli experiments involved laboratory mice and human volunteers. During the reporting period, the daredevils were fed various types of artificial sweeteners used in common weight loss drinks, while simultaneously taking bacterial samples from all parts of the intestine.

There is scientific evidence that the intestinal microflora not only helps to digest and assimilate food, but, as we have already written, can influence appetite and food choices, susceptibility to certain diseases and a predisposition to obesity.

It turned out that any sweetener provokes the growth of bacteria of the Bacteroides type, while suppressing the reproduction of the Clostridiales type, and this happens rapidly. Although today the scientific community has only a glimpse of the mysterious world of bacteria living inside us, it is known that the ratio of Bacteroides and Clostridiales provoked by artificial sweeteners is characteristic of pre-diabetic conditions. It is important that sucrose, a simple white refined sugar, for all its harm, does not affect the state of the intestine so amazingly quickly; you need to lean on sugar for a long time and have a genetic predisposition to diabetes in order to "achieve" a similar violation of the microflora.
In parallel with the change in the bacterial background of the intestines, a noticeable increase in the level of sugar (glucose) in the blood was noted in all subjects. Accordingly, the higher the sugar, the more the body produces insulin, which utilizes the "excess" glucose, including storing it in the form of fat. Israeli scientists cited data from earlier studies that involved a larger number of human volunteers, and at the same time, some of them did not respond to the use of sweeteners with a sharp increase in the concentration of glucose in the blood. The authors of the experiment attributed this to individual characteristics and the presence of certain genetic models, similar to those in which some of us can smoke tobacco for a long time with minimal consequences, and some of us, almost after the first puff, fall into the risk group for oncological and cardiovascular diseases.
The published developments require further research and clarification - the authors of the experiment fully agree with this. However, even those of their colleagues who critically perceived the publication in the journal Nature agree with the Israelis: water is the only completely neutral drink in the world, the use of which does not bring any undesirable consequences for metabolism, helps to lose weight and control blood sugar levels.
When drink becomes food
Of course, even before the publication of Israeli researchers, many nutritionists spoke about the dangers of replacing sugar with chemical substitutes - not only in diet drinks, "unobtrusively" offered by manufacturers as a weight loss aid, but also in other food products, including pastries, confectionery, dairy and dairy products.
One of the sound arguments is the psychological consequences of the use of substitutes: in their practice, nutritionists are often faced with the fact that losing weight considers the use of "zero-calorie" sweeteners as a kind of apology for the subsequent eating of cake or chocolate. However, when it comes to metabolism, the simple calorie math plays a minor role. The trick of any sweetness is that it inevitably makes you want a new sweetness, this is how human insulin-glucose biochemistry works. Therefore, in especially serious cases of dependence on sweets, only a complete rejection of the “irritant” can become a guarantee of harmony and health.

In some European countries, the possibility of warning labeling of products containing sugar or its substitutes in the manner of alcohol or tobacco is being seriously discussed today - be careful, it can be addictive!

Another common danger associated specifically with weight loss drinks is that we tend to think of them as drinking, while soda, smoothies and coffee drinks, and even yogurts and fruit juices are more like food in their composition. According to some reports, those who tend to quench their thirst not with water, get up to 40% of unnecessary calories from mouth-watering cups, packs and bottles, and sincerely wonder why they can’t get rid of excess weight, imperceptibly sipping such healthy and vitamin-rich drinks not instead of eating, but in addition to it.
This subtle issue was touched upon by a recent study conducted in Australia: 750 people who constantly use instant drinks for weight loss, the so-called diet shakes, have recently been extremely popular in our country, got into the pencil. It turned out that 21% of the study participants not only did not lose weight, but also got better by drinking necks, and one in ten, in addition, showed all the signs of dependence on such products and an eating disorder.
The 50% who did report weight loss while drinking instant diet drinks for weight loss complained that they gained excess weight after they were excluded from the menu. Scientists suggest that the fact is that such remedies, which promise help and at the same