Most sugar substitutes are very low or even zero in calories and most are also hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar and hence you need only tiny amounts. However the tendency is to use more of such sweeteners than really needed and also to use them more often as the sweeteners increase the craving for sugary foods. Research on all such ‘Artificial’ or ‘Natural’ sweeteners is still somewhat controversial, even though many studies have found them reasonably safe. However these studies are not deemed comprehensive enough to confirm no long term damage due to their increased usage, their insulin release effect, their effect on gut micro flora and, their role in metabolic disorders due to their fructose content. Hence it is best to avoid all sweeteners whenever possible. If it is really sweet, it probably spikes insulin or screws up your metabolism.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says that the increased risks of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease from consuming sugar drinks probably outweigh the risks posed by artificial sweeteners. Diet sodas may help some people lose weight, if those drinks replace full-calorie sodas – and if people don’t replace the saved calories with extra calories at other times of day. However it is best to do without them too.

The best beverage choices are water or seltzer, mixed with a little lemon juice, or unsweetened tea and also traditional Indian drinks such as ‘Nimbu Pani’ and ‘Jal Jeera’. (See – ‘Non Conventional Treatments & Folk Remedies – Lemon Water’).

The harmful effects of sugar depend completely on the context. Most of the studies are done on people who are already eating a high-carb, Western junk food diet. For those people, especially those who are overweight and/or insulin resistant, large amounts of sugar are downright toxic.

There are a few people who might want to avoid sugar-based sweeteners completely. This includes food addicts, binge eaters and people who are on the Low-Carb Diet or the Ketogenic Diet.

Other people can eat sugar in small amounts without any harm. It is still empty calories and will still be bad for your teeth, but it won’t harm your metabolism, give you fatty liver or end up destroying your health.

If you’re one of those people who eat healthy, but like to bake stuff with healthy ingredients, then using natural sugar-based sweeteners like honey and other natural low calorie sweeteners as given below, is not a problem, as long as the majority of your diet is based on real food.

A Canadian research team led by Dr. Marc Prentki and Dr. Murthy Madiraja, have recently demonstrated that the enzyme Glycerol 3 – Phosphate Phosphatase (G3PP) is able to breakdown and remove excess glycerol phosphate from the body cells, thus protecting the

pancreas and other organs of the body from the toxic effects of high glucose levels. Which in future may be availabale as an answer to excess sugar in our diet. For now we need to control our sugar consumption.

Artificial sweeteners, based as they are on sweet tasting chemicals, are difficult to avoid as they are ubiquitous today in everything from cosmetics to light yoghurt to ketchup etc. Such sweeteners have been associated with early menstruation in girls. Some of such chemicals have been found in the breast milk – even of mothers who don’t consume diet drinks.

Artificially sweeteners create a kind of starvation effect, due to the sweet taste on the tongue triggering a release of insulin, which makes the brain perceive as a calorie shortage and seek to close it by provoking an increase in calorie consumption by up to 30 percent. The boosted insulin reduces glucose tolerance and a tendency toward hyper activity and sleep fragmentation. Regular consumption of diet drinks containing such sweeteners show an increasing relationship of diet to strokes, heart attacks and diabetes, and also alters the population of our gut micro flora adversely.

However, for the present, it is strongly recommended to ‘get off’ all such sweeteners. The exceptions may be the true natural sweeteners listed below.

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