Artificial Sweeteners

I use them often. In baking, when I have a sweet tooth, etc. I've heard it all about how bad they are. I continue to use them and I've lost 80 lbs. I should think that the 80 lb weight loss will undo the negative effects (if there are any) of the 2 packets of sweetener than I always have in my coffee in the morning too. Everything in moderation, and know that it's completely up to you. I like that Splenda measures the same as sugar in baking and that's why I choose it.

I limit them....I do drink a can of diet soda everyday. But I learned to drink tea unsweentened (except for Chai....milk & sweetener please). My cup of chai is more like a snack....not my typical caffiene fix.

My opinion.....Americans are too relient on sweeteners - natural or otherwise. Everything we drink has to be flavored & sweet. If (natural) fruit is sweet....adding sugar makes it taste even better. Sugar is a trigger for me....so I try to eliminate it when I can.

Staying way under 40mg/kg body weight would be a good idea for aspartame.

As a point of reference, that's about 40 diet sodas per day for someone around 165lbs.
If you have PKU, you'd want to avoid aspartame completely due to phenylalanine.

THIS. They are fine for most of the general public if not over consumed. Just like anything else.

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As in everything, moderation is key. It is possible to overdose. When splenda first came out, I actually liked the taste - hated aspartame so this was like a god-send for me. But I was eating 4 bowls of oatmeal a day with 9 packets of splenda in EACH... plus it was in my salad dressing and water. 40 packets a day roughly... NOT GOOD. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia after a year of complaining about a wide variety of symptoms. One night I was reading online and came across the side-effects of splenda and had a light-bulb moment. Cut it all out, and within a few months i was completely back to normal. I have read several other cases of auto-immune diagnosis that turned out to be "cured" when the person cut out diet soda or other artificial sweeteners. I avoided it for years, but now I use it along with other sweeteners in moderation (i dont rely on one anymore!).

And I know everyone touts Stevia because it is "natural" (so is arsenic by the way...) and because it is good for diabetics. The reason it is good for diabetics is because it not only does not raise your blood sugar, it can actually lower it. I have fairly low blood sugar normally (70-80 almost all the time, eating or not). I switched to stevia for a month, starting having tunnel vision and nearly passed out several times... almost always midway through lunch or afternoon. Finally tied it to my big container of tea sweetened with stevia. As a test to confirm, I tested my blood sugar after drinking half the bottle, and it dropped to 50-60, and once to 40! I switched to using monk fruit extract and all was fine again.

I still use artificial sweeteners, because I dont want just extra calories if not needed, but I am very aware now of changes that start at the same time as them, and I am very careful to use only as much as I really really need! I check all ingredients all the time. I recently bought a vitamin water thinking it had splenda in it like it used to. I didnt notice the "naturally sweetened" new label on it - it was made with stevia. I figured it out when I arrived at a meeting (swigging on the way) and was so dizzy I fell against the wall on the way in. These suckers may not be bad for you generally, but somehow I feel they will kill me yet

Staying way under 40mg/kg body weight would be a good idea for aspartame.

As a point of reference, that's about 40 diet sodas per day for someone around 165lbs.
If you have PKU, you'd want to avoid aspartame completely due to phenylalanine.

THIS. They are fine for most of the general public if not over consumed. Just like anything else.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Yep.

A caution about sugar alcohols, though - eating too much of them can cause intestinal upset, and 'too much' is not a ridiculous amount. On the plus side (I think) you'll know you've had too much within an hour or so, and you won't want to do it again.

I try to avoid them because they are so intensely sweet they mess with my palate, so with regular use, I start expecting sweet things to be ridiculously sweet. If I don't use them much, I tend to be satisfied with desserts and other sweets that have less added sugar. I do, however, sometimes have some sort of diet soda or diet iced tea when I want something other than water at a restaurant and they do not have unsweetened iced tea. Splenda (sucralose) I avoid at all cost because I react badly to it.

And I know everyone touts Stevia because it is "natural" (so is arsenic by the way...)

appropriate levels of Arsenic (usually as arsenate or arsenite in drinking water/food) actually increases insulin sensitivity. Arsenic has been a common adetive to animal feeds to increase growth.

Too much contributes to type II diabetes.

Everything in moderation...(even if it's micrograms).

So is deadly nightshade then. Is that a more apt analogy?

Is there any causational, not just correlational, research on the "artificial sweeteners associated with weight gain" idea?

I haven't seen one yet, but strong correlation (both forward and reverse) is surely cause for concen. And there is growing data about possibile health problems so for me it's a no brainer: they should to avoided (with the possibile exception of erythritol).