In my last article, we traveled to Sugar City to explore the effects of sugar on the body and the aging process. This month, we will look at other adversaries to watch out for in Sugar City.
While trying to cut down on sugar consumption, artificial sweeteners may seem like a logical alternative to sugar consumption, but chemical alternatives to sugar can be just as dangerous for our bodies. We also need to keep an eye on our carbohydrate consumption because the pancreas reacts the same as it does to sugar, especially refined carbohydrates that also often contain added sugar. So let’s embark on another journey to Sugar City to learn how to protect our bodies from sugar’s best friends and our worst enemies.
According to researchers, there is no clear-cut evidence that sugar substitutes help people lose weight. Data suggests that chemical sweeteners may actually stimulate the appetite. Aspartame has been on the market for over 20 years, so most of the references to weight gain are related to products made with aspartame.
The FDA insists that artificial sweeteners are safe, but Splenda hasn’t been on the market long enough to earn its safety badge. The dangers of aspartame are now widely known, but the risks of using Splenda were not documented until now. Splenda may not penetrate the blood-brain barrier as aspartame does, but it can adversely affect the body in several ways because it is a chemical substance.
If you have kids, you’ll be the first one to notice health and behavioral changes in your children. Children react to artificial sweeteners in harmful ways, but this aspect of the sweetener wars has gone unnoticed in the mainstream health community.
Sweetener corporations market to children by placing soft drink machines in public elementary schools, and by influencing doctors that diet sweeteners don’t cause abnormal behavior and emotional stress in children. When you have exhausted all the other reasons for your child’s poor health or mental/emotional problems, “diet” chemicals could be the culprit.
The rising numbers of mental disorders have gone unexplained until now. A diet of chemical foods means a diet of malnutrition, and when the body is starved of nutrients, it becomes mentally and physically stressed.
Nutritional diets are critical to longterm health, but when you are polluted with chemical toxins from your foods, it is important to remove these toxins as quickly and safely as possible. Removing chemicals from the human body is a two-part process: eating right and cleansing the chemicals permeating your tissues.
In spite of aspartame’s detrimental effects on lab animals, politics and profits won out. In 1977, U.S. Attorney Samuel Skinner was chosen by the FDA to prosecute G.D. Searle Company for withholding or misrepresenting important research about the effects of aspartame on the lab rats.
After a meeting with Searle’s law firm, Skinner mysteriously quit the FDA and began working for the other side. Eventually, the formal objections to the FDA about not approving aspartame were dismissed, and aspartame began seeping into mainstream food.
“While each chemical poses its own risk to the body, research indicates that this combination makes aspartame even deadlier to those who are consuming it.”
Aspartame is a synthetic sweetener composed of phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol. While each chemical poses its own risk to the body, research indicates that this combination makes aspartame even deadlier to those who are consuming it.
Phenylalanine, an amino acid found in the brain, makes up 50% of aspartame. Ingesting aspartame increases levels of phenylalanine in the brain and may cause serotonin levels to decrease, possibly contributing to depression, mood swings, seizures, and schizophrenia. There is also heightened risk for those who have PKU, a disorder in which the brain lacks the enzyme to remove or break down phenylalanine, damaging the brain in the aforementioned ways.
Aspartic acid, which makes up 40% of aspartame, is another amino acid that stimulates the nervous system. Its use triggers excessive amounts of calcium to flow into the brain, which leads to free radicals building up and eventually causing cell death in the brain.
Aspartame was initially tested as an anti-ulcer medicine in 1965 by a chemist for G.D. Searle Company, but it found its way into the food industry as a sweetener in the early 1980s. Researchers who tested aspartame determined that it caused brain tumors, pancreatic tumors, uterine tumors, and mammary tumors in lab rats. These findings caused an appropriate delay in the approval of the use of aspartame in the mid-1970s.
Research indicates that aspartic acid causes lesions in the brains of lab rats. Many common illnesses are related to excessive amounts of this amino acid in the brain, such as memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia, among an array of others, including death.
Finally, aspartame is made up of 10% methanol, also known as wood alcohol, a toxic poison that damages many organs. Headaches, dizziness, nausea, vertigo, retinal damage, and gastrointestinal disorders are among the vast symptoms of methanol poisoning.
“After you realize the damaging effects that this sweetener has on your body, you need to understand how to avoid it.”
Aspartame is also an excitatory neurotransmitter. A neurotransmitter excites the brain neurons and increases levels of electrical activity in the brain and the auditory cortex, which increases levels of tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Chlorine is commonly found in nature, usually in combination with other building-block elements. The inventors of Splenda admit that around 15% of sucralose is absorbed by the body, and they cannot guarantee how much chlorine stays in the body and how much is flushed out.
After you realize the damaging effects that this sweetener has on your body, you need to understand how to avoid it. First, it’s important to recognize the brand names of aspartame sweeteners, which are NutraSweet and Equal. Then, understand that in the United States, as well as other western countries, aspartame is supposed to be included on the label of products that use it. It may also be identified as containing phenylalanine on the label.
Manufacturers of these substances go to great lengths to convince people that their products are safe, and sometimes they hide the dangerous ingredient by using a different name. Therefore, it is important to avoid foods using chemical sweeteners in any form.
Carbohydrates can be divided into two groups:
Our primary concern is with the first group. Though most of us have been told that sugar is fattening and detrimental to our health, few have learned that refined carbohydrates send the body the same message.
When we eat sugar or refined carbohydrates, the body will signal the pancreas to release more insulin to process what we have consumed. Excess insulin lowers blood sugar, causing such symptoms as reduced energy and increased hunger. A diet that contains an overabundance of carbohydrates can always be identified by the degree of hunger it produces.
Dr. Donald Gutstein said, “Avoidance of hypoglycemia is the key to prevention in diabetes mellitus. It is also the key to successful therapy and the management of a hypoglycemic phase. The overwhelming favorable probability should be made clear that adherence to therapy will arrest the downhill course of the diabetes and will forestall the future obligatory need for insulin for all hypoglycemic agents.”
The most consistently found biochemical abnormality associated with obesity is an excessively high level of insulin. By consuming little to no carbohydrates, we activate the pituitary gland, which activates the fat-mobilizing hormone and aids in breaking down body fats. This hormone is only activated when sugars and carbohydrates are not found in the body.
Carbohydrates stimulate the production of insulin, which I call the “fattening hormone.” Insulin promotes the storage of fuel and lowers blood sugar by converting it to a storage form of carbohydrate called glycogen, which is an animal starch, and into fat, which is known as triglyceride.
Natural sweeteners are much healthier for people than sugar or synthetic chemical sweeteners. Stevia leaf extract is an herbal sweetener that comes from the stevia plant with no calories. Stevia is a great choice to sweeten your food and beverages.
Other great options to sweeten food are raw honey, organic maple syrup, and even fruit juice concentrates. Many of these foods are high in antioxidants, so there may be health benefits in consuming them in moderation. Applesauce, bananas, and dates are especially useful for sweetening foods that you make in your home, although you may need to use these to supplement sugar rather than eliminating it completely.
Dr. Eric Kaplan and Dr. Perry Bard, are business partners of over 32 years. They have developed Disc Centers of America & Concierge Coaches, now in the eleventh year, as well as the first and largest National Certification Program for Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression. Currently, they have over 150 clinics using their Disc Centers of America brand and lead ongoing success training events throughout the year. For more information on coaching, spinal decompression, or seminars, visit www.TheChiroEvent.com or www.DecompressionCertified.org, or call the Chiropractic Q&A Hotline at 888-990-9660.
Dr. Jason Kaplan is a graduate of PARKER University. Along with his wife Dr. Stephanie Kaplan, they practice in Wellington Florida. Jason is an Instructor for Disc Centers of America. He has been recognized and honored by the International Disc Education Association and serves on the Medical Advisory Board for Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression. He teaches technique at the National Certification Program at Life University and is considered a Master on Non Surgical Spinal Decompression. www.WellinqtonDisccenter.com.
