In order to lose weight, it is essential to improve your daily habits.
The first thing we need to pay attention to is our eating habits.
However, some people think that all they need to do is limit their calories, and so they easily choose zero-calorie drinks and foods. In fact, such products are available all over supermarkets, and their packaging often makes them seem good for you.
The dangers of artificial sweeteners
Some people may feel safe using it because they think, "It's okay because I won't gain weight even if I eat a lot." However, it is known that the artificial sweeteners contained in zero-calorie foods have various adverse effects on the body.
What's more, it has recently been discovered that it is even more fattening than sugar.
1. Acts on hormones to accumulate fat in the body
Artificial sweeteners affect insulin, known as the "obesity hormone," and peptides that promote insulin secretion.
When you eat, the sugar concentration in your blood (blood glucose level) rises and insulin is secreted from the pancreas to remove the excess glucose from the blood.
This action of insulin causes the liver and muscles to convert glucose into glycogen and store it, lowering blood sugar levels.
However, there is a limit to how much glycogen can be stored in the liver and muscles, and then insulin acts on fat cells, converting the excess glucose into fat and storing it in the fat cells as body fat.
This is why insulin is called the "obesity hormone."
Originally, there is a big difference in insulin secretion ability between Westerners and Asians, including Japanese.
Westerners have the ability to secrete large amounts of insulin, so excess glucose is quickly converted into fat cells and stored by the action of insulin. If this condition continues, they will become very fat, but because insulin is being secreted, they are unlikely to develop diabetes.
On the other hand, Asians, including the Japanese, have only about half the insulin secretion capacity of Westerners , which means that they are susceptible to diabetes even if they are not overweight.
It has become a hot topic that insulin, known as the "obesity hormone," is also secreted when artificial sweeteners are consumed.
❷It messes with your sense of taste
For example, the same candy may not be sweet enough for person A, but too sweet for person B. Have you ever had this experience?
Person A normally likes to eat sweet things, so his sense of taste is dulled. On the other hand, Person B is sensitive to sweet things, so even a little bit of sweetness is enough to satisfy him.
Saccharin is 200 to 700 times sweeter than sugar. Other artificial sweeteners are also sweeter than sugar, for example, cyclamate is 160 to 220 times sweeter, aspartame is 200 times sweeter, and sucralose is 600 times sweeter. Furthermore, the new artificial sweetener neotame is about 7,000 to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar.
The sweeteners used in these products are diluted, but once you get used to strong sweetness, your sense of taste becomes dull. As a result, even if you eat sweets that use natural sweeteners such as fruit, you won't be able to taste the sweetness, and you will tend to overeat or add sugar. As a result, you will take in excess calories and gain weight.
First of all, how do humans sense taste?
In fact, we sense five tastes - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami - with tiny organs called taste buds.
These taste buds are located on the surface of the tongue. Recent research has shown that sweet taste receptors can detect sugars of different chemical structures (sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose), sweet amino acids, sweet proteins, and artificial sweeteners. These substances have very different molecular weights and chemical properties, but their sweetness is detected by the same receptor.
Furthermore, sweet taste receptors are not only found on the tongue, but also in the stomach, intestines, and pancreas. In particular, when the sweet taste receptors in the stomach detect sweetness, a substance called ghrelin is secreted. Ghrelin is a hormone secreted from the stomach and other organs, which acts on the hypothalamus in the brain to increase appetite and promote the secretion of growth hormone.
When you are hungry and your stomach is empty, your ghrelin concentration increases. When you eat something and there is food in your stomach, your ghrelin level decreases. Ghrelin also has the effect of increasing fat and making you gain weight. The reason you can eat dessert even when you are full is due to the action of ghrelin.
The sweet taste of artificial sweeteners is also detected by the same sweet taste receptors, so it is here that ghrelin may act, increasing appetite.
3. More addictive than cocaine
When we eat delicious food, neurotransmitters such as dopamine are secreted, giving us a sense of satisfaction. This makes us want to eat more. When we take in energy from food, the nervous system that regulates this process is called the "brain reward system." The brain's reward system is also called the "pleasure center," and is the nervous system that rewards us.
However, if the desire to "eat more" becomes too strong, the pleasure becomes uncontrollable, leading to habituation, abuse, dependence, and even addiction. In this case, dopamine plays an important role.
Recently, it has been discovered that the sweetness of sugar and artificial sweeteners affects the brain's reward system and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, causing dependency and addiction . Have you heard of "sweet addiction"? Artificial sweeteners have exactly the same effect as narcotics and stimulants, and can cause dependency.
It's hard to realize you have a sweet addiction until someone points it out to you or you try to cut down on your intake. In fact, it has been found that gluten, vegetable oils, and synthetic flavorings are just as addictive.
summary
Everyday snacks and junk food clearly seem bad for our health, but we also need to be careful because many of the inexpensive condiments we use at home contain unhealthy sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup and isoglucose.
Before starting a diet, it is important to first learn the correct dieting method and change your lifestyle habits.
I have written many related articles so far, so please take a look.
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