While most people know deep down that there’s something wrong with fake sugar — it can’t taste that sweet without negative side effects, right? — they still don’t know what’s up, which leads to a lot of myths and confusion.
Every couple of years a new artificial sweetener comes out claiming that it’s much better than the other artificial sweeteners around, which cause cancer and death, and are the worst thing that you can put in your body. This is not true.
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According to Popular Science, sweeteners don’t cause cancer, but they do have issues. The main problem with artificial sweeteners is the fact that they might not help people lose weight at all, and that they might even contribute to weight gain.
Recent studies claim that the consumption of fake sugar trains your insulin response to store more fat. This means that your body ends up producing the same amount of insulin as if you were consuming real sugar but your brain doesn’t reward you for it. This causes a big problem because people end up craving more sugar while their bodies are still producing insulin.
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Another problem that this study poses is that, since your body is still producing insulin, artificial sweeteners can lead to type 2 diabetes, just like sugar.
In the long term, consuming artificial sweeteners instead of sugar doesn’t make much of a difference. If you consume both in large amounts you’ll have health issues and gain weight. The key here is not about which sugar is better, it’s about consuming them with moderation.