 Artificial sweeteners are similar enough to sugar molecules to trigger the sweetness receptors on your palate and are usually too different for sugar to be broken down into calories. But what dictates what is bad for us? The glycemic index is fairly irrelevant as most foods are consumed with others. So the impact on insulin is what we should be looking at. Raising insulin isn't necessarily a bad thing as consuming any food in general will raise insulin. Whether it is carbohydrate, protein, or fat, the problem is the overall amount of insulin and how much it is spiking throughout the day. If you are consuming something that is just pure sugar, something that is just pure starch at various increments throughout the day, that is where we do have issues. What you don't want to do is increase this insulin with artificial sweetener without providing your body with the glucose it is expecting. The primary negative things to be aware of in the context of artificial sweeteners are any cancer or disease promoting activity, the disruption of the gut microbiome, and the over consumption of hyper-palatable foods. The three predominant artificial sweeteners we see are aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose, which are sold as equal, sweet and low, and splendor. I'm sure you guys go into any coffee shop, any restaurant, and you see those three in the sugar container. Each of these has shown various effects on insulin and blood glucose in studies, most of them not exhibiting too much of an effect. Again, that is not the main focus here. Aspartame is broken down into metabolites, but it is claimed that these metabolites are not in large enough amounts to be considered harmful. Many studies have however shown brain damage, resulting in anything from seizures to migraines. Saccharin was actually banned in 1981 because it produced bladder tumors and rats. There are many negative effects that have been observed, including headaches, breathing issues, diarrhea. Interestingly, saccharin was discovered by a chemist that was working on coal tar. One of the extracts had a sweet taste to it. What's worse, industrial lubricant seed oils or coal tar sweeteners. Most of these sweeteners have actually been discovered in a similar way. Sucralose is derived from sugar, not absorbed or recognized by the body, potentially breaks down into carcinogenic compounds at high temperatures. It has also been shown to shrink the thymus gland, resulting in poor immune response and enlarged liver and kidneys. A sulfane potassium is commonly added to drinks and gums to decrease the bitter taste of aspartame and has shown adverse effects in rat studies. It's worth noting that many of these artificial sweeteners were banned, including cyclimate, and some were never even approved for use in the United States, such as Neohespartin. But even when this information is put in the general media, the public doesn't seem to care. Studies aren't that convincing. What we can say without a doubt from a mechanistic standpoint is that artificial sweeteners will disrupt the gut microbiome. This dysbiosis can result in glucose intolerance, blood sugar issues, bacteria in the gut not being able to function as it had before. This is because certain artificial sweeteners are recognized as toxins to this gut bacteria and other artificial sweeteners are utilized more by certain gut bacteria creating this imbalance. Including sugar alcohols like xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol, malatol, a bunch of other ones are used in many food products, one popular sweetener such as Trevia. These do spike insulin more unlike the previous sweeteners and again are not absorbed by the body, especially considering these are FODMAPS poorly absorbed in the small intestine. Some common symptoms you might see are like gas, bloating, and diarrhea. Monk fruit sweetener is also very popular, something a lot of you guys suggest I use instead of honey. It's from an antioxidant in the monk fruit known as mongrosides. These are separated from the fresh pressed monk fruit juice, so as with most of these other substitutes, not a natural process. Monk fruit sweetener does raise blood sugar levels and has been speculated to increase insulin secretion which might be a concern without adequate glucose in the meal. Stevia, which is extracted from the leaves of a plant, is sweet with virtually no calories, does not increase blood sugar levels, and is the only sweetener that some people aren't able to find anything negative about. The issue is it doesn't taste that great, so it's usually combined with other sweeteners in its products. Pure Stevia is not typically used. Stevia is metabolized by the liver, so it's hard to gauge the level of stress that is being put on the body. There are many studies that link diet drinks to negative health consequences, but these may just be a result of the corresponding poor lifestyle. That being said, these drinks can be very addictive, specifically because of the artificial sweeteners, eliciting a high dopamine response. And your concern might not directly be the artificial sweetener itself, but other aspects of that diet drink. What other chemicals are in it, what type of water was used, certainly a lack of research on mechanisms in the body is apparent. And how most of these products are on the market for a very short period of time is something else we should be concerned about, which is why I am unable to recommend the use of many of these chemicals, what they really are. The concern we mentioned earlier, increasing insulin without providing the body with glucose results in you actually craving carbohydrates. You are also likely consuming hyper-palatable baked goods instead of high quality nutrient-dense whole foods. The reason we are looking to sweeten our food is to increase its palatability, make it taste better. But the reason we consume plant food in the first place is for caloric energy. That's why using artificial sweeteners doesn't make sense to me. Caloric restriction is something very new to humans because to survive in nature, our main goal is to consume calories. Our job and purpose is to procure enough nutrition from nature to reproduce. Now, with our modern access to food, things have changed. But is regular sugar worse than artificial sweeteners? Now, there is a difference between raw honey and other sugars like agave or maple syrup. It doesn't spike insulin as much and has beneficial aspects pertaining to the local environment it was grown in. That being said, sugar is still sugar, but I do use honey myself over other artificial sweeteners as well as any sweetener in general. I find that you don't need to use a lot of honey and sugar is demonized to some degree. If you are consuming foods in their natural context, meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, all prepared in natural ways, it's essentially impossible to become unhealthy. It's worth noting that honey would likely have not been available in many parts of the world, especially at all times of the year. But certain berries and carbohydrates may have been available for sweetening purposes. It's arguable that even with high quality natural food, making a cheesecake is something that is unrealistically palatable and shouldn't be done on a consistent basis. But above all, regardless of the sweetener, you have to consider the quality of the other ingredients going into the cheesecake, which I think is far more important. If you're drinking coffee, are you drinking the highest quality you have access to? If you're making a keto recipe, are you using high quality raw local dairy or store bought pasteurized crap? Those things are far more important than whether you use sugar or artificial sweeteners. Keep in mind, though, even honey can cause bacterial imbalance, so you want to be mindful about how much sugar you are consuming and the overall context of that meal. For the average American, this is just one of the many negatives of a standard American diet. And there are unfortunately many things far more negative such as high sugar, high carbohydrate intake, vegetable seed oils, agrochemicals that need to be addressed first. Before I would bother with fear mongering about artificial sweeteners, although they certainly make things worse and in certain people in particular, they might be the biggest cause to their health issues. Thank you guys for joining me today. If you could please, please, please share the video. You know, there really isn't an objective in depth source on a topic like this that I have access to. If you could also like the video, subscribe, hit that bell icon. If you guys do want to support me further, you can check out Frankie's Free Range Meat. We have brains on sale this week, courtesy of Halloween. You can also check out Frankie's Naturals for minimal ingredients, minimal process, hygiene, and cosmetic products. If you guys do want to reach out to me for one-on-one consultations, you can shoot me an email frankatofano at gmail.com. Thanks again for joining me, guys, and enjoy the rest of your day. What about the insulin response? Well, it doesn't appear that it causes an insulin response on its own, but it does appear to improve insulin sensitivity in the pancreas. Now, this could be a problem because if you're on a drug like an GLT2 inhibitor and you produce more insulin in response to this without providing glucose at the same time, you could potentially end up with something like diabetic ketoacidosis as a result of the drug. And that's one of the reasons that we suggest that people stop these drugs when they're going on a ketogenic diet. But overall, this particular drug is quite dangerous, and I've had a couple of patients unrelated to this who have gotten infections and ended up in intensive care. So we need to be very careful. It's an area that we don't know a lot about and we're still learning.