
Sugar Vs Artificial Sweeteners
The largest proportion of disease within the western world is that caused by excessive inflammation. Dietary sugars and refined flours are the biggest triggers of inflammation. Eating refined sugar weakens your immune system and promotes yeast overgrowth and yeast overgrowth plays havoc with your immune system – it is a vicious circle. It also causes spikes in your insulin levels causing disruption with your bodies biochemistry leading to chronic and persistent inflammation.
With this in mind, many people often ask if trading in their sugar intake for artificial sweeteners will benefit their health. But the answer is that sweeteners present many of the sale pitfalls as sugar. Yet many shoppers are sucked in by advertising slogans such as “no sugar”, thinking that what they are eating or drinking is better because there isn’t sugar present.
READ the ingredients LABEL!
The truth is that you should try to AVOID most sugars and natural sweeteners as much as possible. This includes corn syrup, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, maltodextrin, dextrose, molasses, rice milk, white grape juice, fruit juice sweetened, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, date sugar, cane sugar, corn sugar, beet sugar and lactose.
Artificial sweeteners also cause insulin spikes as well as disrupt the normal hormonal and neurological signals that control hunger and the feeling of fullness after eating (satiety). They are likely to cause a slowing of your metabolism, and trigger you to consume more foods and more calories – all these things lead to weight gain.
You should not consider artificial sweeteners to be a healthier substitute for sugar. My advice is to start being more aware of what is in your food and drink and stay away from Aspartame, Sucralose, and sugars such as Xylitol and Malitol unless you want to slow down your metabolism, gain weight, and become addicted.
Yet cutting down on sugar and sweetened food is easier said than done. Many people are addicted to sugar and will find it hard to cut it out completely. As a very general guideline, you should aim to eat food that contains lower levels of sugar – often indicated when sugar is no higher than 4th or 5th on the ingredient list. For optimal health, however, it is advisable to avoid all sugars on a permanent or semi-permanent basis.
Is it possible to cut out sugar and sweeteners?
The first few days are always the hardest when cutting sugar from your diet. Often, people relapse because missing out on sugar leaves them feeling grotty while the body tries to stabilise blood sugar levels. In fact, it is not much different than someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol kicking the habit.
But it seems more socially acceptable to go back on to the sugar than it does to relapses after going cold turkey. Keep working on it every day and keep this in mind PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION.
Getting the help and support of an experienced healthcare professional such as a chiropractor is a great start if you are looking to make a change to your lifestyle and nutritional intake. Due to the holistic nature of chiropractic care, chiropractors are well versed in nutrition and the best techniques to achieve a healthy balanced lifestyle.
If you are based in Eastbourne and are looking to make an appointment with a qualified chiropractor, visit Lushington Chiropractic or call us on 01323 722499.
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