Artificial sweeteners; good or bad?

Artificial sweeteners are widely used by huge population as a low calorie substitute for sugar. Each day a new form of artificial sweetener is introduced in the market. With diet versions available for various refreshments in the market, companies include these artificial sweeteners in these refreshments too. Thinking that using these artificial sweetener would help you cut out the extra calories intake in your body isn’t completely true.

Artificial sweeteners when included doesn’t help you eliminate all the adverse effects of sugar, instead it adds many by itself. The artificial form of sugar is broken down in a similar way as the normal sugar. These forms of sugar can be very dangerous; it can alter the blood sugar levels. It can sometimes increase the blood sugar level and sometimes can lower the blood sugar level too. Lowering the sugar level in the body causes you to reach out for more sugar causing increase intake of these sweeteners. In the end you tend to intake more calories compared to the natural form of sugar.

Besides increasing the intake of the calories, these artificial sweeteners can have very adverse effects on your body causing very critical damage. To learn about the damages cause by these artificial sweeteners one should know about the harmful ingredients present in these artificial sweeteners. Some of the ingredients present in these artificial sweeteners include aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. The ingredient aspartic acid can cause damage to the various neural cells of the brain if taken for too long and in too large amounts.

The ingredient phenylalanine can cause depression in individuals. And the artificial sweetener methanol is known to be a poison; it can hamper the body’s functioning. The ingredient methanol when taken inside the body breaks up into formaldehyde which is very dangerous. Using this kind of sugar substitutes can cause various health conditions which include Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, blurry vision, blindness, sometimes can cause memory loss and many more fatal health conditions. One should limit or avoid these sugar substitutes and instead can switch to some other options for low calorie intake. You can try natural alternatives like honey, xylitol, cane sugar and many other safer options that are just as good.