Artificial sweeteners may not help you lose weight and, in fact, could be bad for your health.
A new study from Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin says those sweeteners are potential contributors to the dramatic increases in obesity and diabetes.
“The negative implications of consuming high amounts of dietary sugar on overall health have long been linked to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and other systemic health problems,” the authors wrote in a statement.
“However, it was not until recently that the negative impact of consuming non-caloric artificial sweeteners in the place of sugar had been increasingly recognized as a potential contributor to the dramatic increase in diabetes and obesity, along with the associated complications.”
Researchers add that a high amount of the sweeteners can damage blood vessels and destabilize the equilibrium.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of US adults have obesity and more than 100 million Americans are living with diabetes or pre-diabetes.
“We observed that, in moderation, your body has the machinery to handle sugar; it is when the system is overloaded over a long period of time that this machinery breaks down,” Brian Hoffmann, who led the study, said in a statement.
“We also observed that replacing these sugars with non-caloric artificial sweeteners leads to negative changes in fat and energy metabolism.”
Other studies have also found potentially harmful effects from artificial sweeteners including one that said drinks that contain them could raise the risk of dementia or stroke. {eoa}
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