More Than Ironic

Some artificial sweeteners(CBS Pittsburgh photo)

For about 20 years I swilled diet instead of regular soda. Diet drinks always tasted slightly chemical-ly and/or metallic, but lousy taste was the sacrifice one made to avoid putting on pounds.

A few years ago popular health literature began warning that artificial sweeteners are not only ineffective but can also be deleterious to health. I switched to sparkling water, which I should have done before anyway, and when I absolutely had to have soda partook of the sugared version.

Yale cardiologist Harlan Krumholz looks at the current literature, which confirms that artificial sweeteners "do not seem to help people keep weight off." Worse, researchers [bold added]

found that people who consumed these sweeteners were more likely to have increases in weight and waistline, and a higher incidence of obesity, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular events.

One theory is that chemical sweeteners "showed an impact on hormone secretion, cognitive processes and gut microbiota".

We thought that we were sacrificing taste for health but wound up with neither.

Again Dr. Krumholz: "it would be more than ironic. It would be tragic."