 Next question is from E.M. Reina. What's the difference between sugar and artificial sweeteners on our body? Oh, yeah, love. I love this. There's always such a debate so much controversy. Okay, big difference artificial sweeteners have no calories Sugar has you know for calories per gram, right? So there's calories and sugar no calories an artificial sweetener the brain perceives the sweetness in similar ways in fact the perception of sweetness is actually stronger with artificial sweeteners This is why people who drink lots of diet sodas will actually start to prefer the taste of them over sugar sodas because the artificial sweetener actually hits that sweet perception a little bit more than sugar Now the big debate is well, can they help you lose weight? Okay, so earlier in this episode, right in the intro We talked about human behavior. Here's where again, we got to apply human behavior Yes, if you cut 30 grams of sugar out your out of your diet replace it with artificial sweeteners and keep everything else exactly the same You're cutting your calories. You're probably gonna lose some weight Here's why that never happens in real-world studies Nobody accounts for the human behavior aspect of it when people reduce their sugar through artificial sweeteners They almost always replace those calories again with other foods and it's because again It encourages that behavior that sweet that sweet perception Makes you kind of want to eat more you want it again. You want to seek out more of that novelty Yeah, and then here's another big one, right? And I remember talking with Adam about this because you know, you were a competitor So you tracked everything so much and I remember we had this huge discussion about it And it was like this light bulb moment for both of us where especially for people who are conscious of their physique and their health sugar has this natural Kind of block right like oh there's calories So I can only have one soda because it's 150 calories. So I'll just have one then the same physique You know a conscious individual will be like oh diet soda zero calories I'll just drink those all day long and then they tended to create this dysfunctional pattern Because they don't have that that block or that you know that speed bump that calories would provide now They think it's like free-for-all because you know artificial sweeteners don't have any calories Do you know when when were Artificial sweeteners invented you 70s or I don't know if they're invented, but I know that they hit the market I think in the 70s. Maybe Doug can look me up. It was like not nutritious. We were the main sweet and low I think first one. I think aspartame or no. No, there was another one starts with an s that's super low Chakrin I think saccharin was what I'm asking because Are there still some things that are unknown for us? Do you think that we know everything about like is there been enough time and studies around it to Safely say oh, it's completely, you know harmless and there's nothing else going on It's just it's I don't think anything's ever completely harmless There's still rip them people still call all the time, you know And we'll call the poison control because they have this weird Reaction to artificial sweeteners. So nothing's ever in there not even water you can drink too much water and and kill yourself There's a lot of debate around it. There's interesting animal studies, but human studies so far show this They don't help you lose weight. Are there health negative health effects? I don't know probably not but maybe animal studies show some interesting stuff with with cancer with some of these Artificial sweeteners, but they give them such high doses that it would be super likely for humans to consume That's always the the debate for the person supporting artificial sweeteners is that and that when they counter somebody who says something negative about them and say oh If you looked at the first of all their animal studies and the amounts that you would have to drink 50 cokes in a day to even be come close to what they're talking about But I've just I've always been curious to you know what we know and what we don't know about them And if they've only been around you're saying since the 70s or what would you find well saccharin was invented way before 1897 now hold on what was the original it was it was in a mix. What were they trying to create? Yeah, so they're looking for new uses for coal tar derivatives This was at Johns Hopkins University oil and tar and yeah, they make so many different variations Look at this. He forgot to wash his hands before lunch and tasted something sweet on his fingers This is like the like the Viagra story where they try to invent a drug for something and they're like wait a minute Yeah, we can make great boners. Yeah, we can make this wait a minute Anna freeze has a nice sweet flavor to it Let's reduce this down and put it in cereal. What is this anything else? Yeah, there's a fun fact here Monsanto got its start in 1901 selling saccharin. Why is my no wow? I did not know that there's a really interesting podcast about all this Joe I had the guy like the Investigated like Monsanto and their start and all that yeah And it had like all these different pathways They're able to create a lot of these types of artificial sugars a lot of different types of you know pesticides and all this from You know oil products and like like leftover things Wow, here's another interesting thing it by 1907 Saccharin was already widely used in sodas and canned goods, but most Americans had no idea it was in their food That's nice. What does it say there about about Teddy Roosevelt? That guy was by the way you ever you ever hear read his story. He's literally the most alpha. He's like Batman That's actually bad based off Batman was based off of the guy. Was he bro. No way really Teddy Roosevelt literally Purposely crime went to fight in war because he wanted to be on the front lines didn't listen to his orders and went to the front line To fight he were those guys were those guys running our country anymore. Yeah, they're out there anymore Those humans still exist. I just why don't we vote for those people anymore? Yeah, so what happened was this guy who was ahead of the USDA? Recommended banning saccharin because it's possibly toxic, but it was Teddy Roosevelt that said no Let's not do this because I'm using it to lose weight interesting So now saccharin is was not really used that much anymore because I think it got a bad rap For a lot for a little while well So I want the underbring so was it in the animal studies where they're talking about the gut flora and it affecting it in any way Or is that just something that a lot of like wellness people kind of brought up? It's it's controversial. It's not It's not a hundred percent in one way or the other although. They'll say it is on either side sure Like some studies will say oh it changes the way that your gut microbiome You know reacts to insulin or reduces insulin sensitivity or it kills certain bacteria then you'll see people say no it doesn't So I mean look here's a deal You're probably okay having some of it if it's if it's if you're trying to lose weight with it Unless you're counting and tracking everything it's not going to work the studies show this Simply cutting out sugary foods But not controlling everything else what typically happens is you'll replace it with other calories And it does change your perception to sweetness It's so strong that if you have lots of artificial sweeteners You will start to find that you need your food to be sweeter and sweeter for you to perceive it With the same level of sweetness and this can pose a problem for anybody trying to change their diet or eat healthier I mean when you pick up a fruit and it tastes bland Because your diet coke has rewired how you perceive sweetness well that can Turn into an issue. So I have personally never used artificial sweeteners as a as a way to help my clients lose weight I've always found it to be super ineffective the only times I have We're with competitors who track the hell out of everything. Otherwise, I totally stayed away Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe