Splenda too?

This is all I need.

For diabetics and the calorie conscious who steer clear of sugary foods, artificial sweeteners are a blessing. These undigestable synthetic compounds, like aspartame or saccharin, give foods a sweet taste but don't mess with a delicate blood glucose balance or add unwanted girth. Or, that's how they're supposed to work. Scientists are finding, though, that artificial sweeteners may mess with the body in curious ways—maybe even contributing to the problems they were meant to avoid.

In a new study, researchers found that both in mice and in people artificial sweeteners seem to contribute to glucose intolerance—a blanket term for metabolic problems that lead to high blood sugar, such as pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.

And I’ve been thinking I’ve been being so good. Two cups of coffee a day, one Splenda per cup. I treat myself to the rare Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi, but mostly it’s water and unsweetened ice tea with lemon and Splenda instead and it turns out all I’m doing is messing with my microbes and making the diabetes worse?

Sigh.

This is why I shouldn’t read stories about medicine.

You should though, at least the whole story that prompted this post, Artificial Sweeteners May Be Screwing Up How Your Body Handles Sugar, by Colin Schultz at Smithsonian.

Comments

[MJ]

You may appreciate Steve Novella's take on this at the NeuroLogica Blog:

Artificial Sweeteners and Diabetes.

As a Diet Coke lover, I was dismayed to read the original article, but then somewhat heartened to read Dr. Novella's dissection of the study.

[Lance Mannion]

Thanks for that link, MJ! I feel a little better.

[doug r]

Just throw lots of cream into that coffee. The lactose is slightly less deadly than sucrose, and fat in your diet apparently ain't as bad as carbs....