Side Effects of Artificial Sweeteners

One of the major functions of your liver is breaking down all foods you consume into their chemical substances.

During this process the the liver filters out everything other than the nutrients your body needs.
One part of what makes this process possible is bile, which the liver produces for this purpose. The job of bile is to break down fats and process the fats your body needs to assimilate fat-soluble vitamins.

But what happens if your liver is so overwhelmed with toxins (everything your liver does not recognize as a natural nutrient it considers a toxin and attempts to filter out)? Your liver is too busy filtering out these toxins and cannot do an effective job processing the nutrients and fats your body needs, thus causing weight gain or the inability to lose weight!

Surprise! While thinking you are doing the right thing for losing weight by consuming everything containing the term "diet", you are actually being counter active towards your efforts!

As the name already implies, artificial sweeteners are, well, artificial. Artificial sweeteners are chemically altered sugar molecules, which do not occur in nature and as such, your body (liver) does not recognize them as a natural source of nutrients. Consequently artificial sweeteners are regarded as toxin by the liver and it attempts to flush them out of your system as waste.

The more "toxic" substances you consume, the more your bile is hampered processing fats, which, in turn, leads to the inability to lose weight or even weight gain (more on this below)!

Even if you don't use the little sweetener packets themselves, as mentioned above, most or all food products containing the word "diet" contain a good amount of artificial sweeteners! So, taking the information above into account, how effective do you think your liver is working?

If you are a heavy consumer of "diet" products and are not seeing the results, in terms of weight loss, you have hoped for...now you know why!

Another side effect of artificial sweeteners is an increase in appetite.

I'm not going to bore you with the chemical deails here, but in simplified terms, when the sweet substance is consumed it triggers the brain
to think that nutrition for the body has appeared and needs to be processed. However, since artificial sweeteners are not recognized as nutrients, the brain receives another message, which is that more nutrients are needed to break down the waste and you stay hungry, thus eat more. I'm sure you can see where this ends up in terms of you trying to lose weight.

Another one of the side effects of artificial sweeteners is an increase in the desire for sweet food. Artificial sweeteners are several hundred times sweeter than sugar itself, thus promoting a "sweet tooth" effect, resulting in sugar cravings. This is another dangerous territory if you are trying to maintain a healthy meal plan. How long can you resist the cravings before eventually giving in?

If your goal is to lose fat and keep it off, the side effects of artificial sweeteners make them nothing less than one of your biggest enemies!
So yes, artificial sweeteners are bad for you!

A safe alternative to artificial sweeteners is Stevia.
Stevia is a plant and not an artificially produced substance, therefore not a "toxin" to your liver.