I think I've spotted an actual desiring machine in the field! Scientific American:
Splenda is not satisfying—at least according to the brain. A new study found that even when the palate cannot distinguish between the artificial sweetener and sugar, our brain knows the difference.
At the University of California, San Diego, 12 women underwent functional MRI while sipping water sweetened with either real sugar (sucrose) or Splenda (sucralose). Sweeteners, real or artificial, bind to and stimulate receptors on the taste buds, which then signal the brain via the cranial nerve. Although both sugar and Splenda initiate the same taste and pleasure pathways in the brain—and the subjects could not tell the solutions apart—the sugar activated pleasure-related brain regions more extensively than the Splenda did. In particular, “the real thing, the sugar, elicits a much greater response in the insula,” says the study’s lead author, psychiatrist Guido Frank, now at the University of Colorado at Denver. The insula, involved with taste, also plays a role in enjoyment by connecting regions in the reward system that encode the sensation of pleasantness.
“Looking at the connection between the taste areas, Splenda is stronger,” Frank says. He suggests that when we taste Splenda, the reward system becomes activated but not satiated. “Our hypothesis is that Splenda has less of a feedback mechanism to stop the craving, to get satisfied.”
"The reward system becomes activated but not satiated..." What could go wrong?
Recent research indeed suggests a correlation between artificial sweetener intake and compromised health. In one large survey, diet soda consumption was found to be associated with elevated cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk. A different study reveals a possible mechanism behind this effect: rats that were fed artificially sweetened yogurt in addition to their regular feed ended up eating more and gaining more weight than rats that ate yogurt with real sugar. The study’s authors suggest that exposure to an artificial sweetener may undermine the brain’s ability to track calories and to determine when to stop eating.
So, the artificial persons gorge themselves on profit. And so what if real people die? They're only "human resources"--flesh to be seeded with desiring machines and harvested for profit.
In fact, the sicker real people get, more other artificial persons in our "health care" system get fat!
Human rights, not human resources!
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Cane Sugar
I still want them to go back to cane sugar instead of the corn syrup crap.
Agreed. When I was in
Agreed. When I was in Jamaica several years back I ordered a coke and it tasted really, really good. I looked at the ingredients on the bottle and it contained sugar, not high fructose corn syrup. Huge difference. Sugary goodness!
jeff
http://www.morecowbellrock.com
Very interesting.
I wonder what the results would be if they tried the same thing with natural sugar substitutes e.g., stevia or erythritol. I make chocolates with stevia and they definitely satisfy my sweet cravings -- though that could have something to do with the chocolate. Though other people who eat them say the same thing.
Oh, and did you know that we have Donald Rumsfeld to thank for sheparding nutrasweet to market?
reminds me of harvey korman
"sounds wonderful".
My husband uses Splenda in holiday pies,
which he makes by the dozens. A friend picked a big, juicy apple pie up and called back the next day to say how good it was. "yeah, and it's sugar-free!" I emphasized. "hmmm," he replied, "maybe that's why I felt so comfortable eating the whole thing in one sitting."
I guess we have the answer as to how that happened. Interesting.
And yes, one diet soda a day leads to metabolic syndrome - obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and all the other bad stuff. To be avoided.
Ain't no pretender gonna see my tattoo!
If we are the ones we have been waiting for, then we have met the enemy and he is us.
Sounds like time for a recipe swap!
Sugar free pie--mmmmmm mmmmmmm good.
One diet soda a day? OMG--I lose count! And I do have weight loss problems, but for the short time my body was "in balance*" using synthetic thyroid hormone, I lost weight like magic. Just melted off--awoke with energy before the alarm went off. Didn'g change my diet--more active because more energy. But it was wonderful!
Something happened after my last radioactive iodine scan (just the wee small amount for a scan), and I immediately felt fatigued, retained fluid, began gaining weight, cholesterol up. But, did not change diet initially. Then, when I realized things were not going to go back into "balance," I have been dieting strictly. Can't lose the weight.
Bodies are strange and complex things....
If I were young and starting over, I think I would enjoy researching the endocrine system and its effects on all others systems in the body.
*My endo's term.
What are the odds
that someone named JawBone would respond to my first post with my new sig line? LOL
If we are the ones we have been waiting for, then we have met the enemy and he is us.
Not exactly
"And yes, one diet soda a day leads to metabolic syndrome - obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and all the other bad stuff. To be avoided."
Don't confuse correlation with causation. The reasoning behind it is that once you lose the association between sweetness and caloric content, you'll start pigging out on other things.
It's not the diet coke that makes you fat, it's when you drink a diet coke and then eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's because, hey, you've earned it! And it doesn't taste that filling anyhow...
But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!
But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!
Scarshapedstar - that's interesting.
I've read quite a bit about this, and I haven't seen that. What I have read is that they think the body gears up to deal with lots of calories based on the sweet taste, and when there are no calories there, it hangs on even tighter to the next batch it does receive.
I write about obesity issues and people are always finding ways to presume that fat people are eating much more than they realize. But the problem is that a lot of fat people don't eat badly. In fact, a lot of studies find that there isn't much difference between how fat people and non-fat people eat - we all eat badly. Yes, there are some bingers but that's a minority of obese people. Around 75% of excess weight is genetic in origin and nearly impossible to lose and keep off.
One mindboggling study for you - in Canada, they put a group of women on 500 calorie diets and supervised exercise. They all lost weight. Then they bumped their calorie intake up to 800 calories per day, kept the exercise up, and they all gained weight.
If we are the ones we have been waiting for, then we have met the enemy and he is us.