The usefulness and potential of artificial/non-caloric sweeteners as weapons to reduce or control obesity in the general population

Abstract
Obesity is a growing global health problem in the work. Many are increasing in weight and seeking ways to reduce weight or solution to stop matter from getting worse. Over a century ago many accidental discovery of sweetening agent which called artificial sweeteners with low or zero calories ought to be able to assist with obese and overweight issues. Many research have been done to find the actually benefit of artificial sweeteners. Sweeteners benefit from being much sweeter than normal sugar and could reach up to 600 times sweeter than sugar which industries took advantage in cutting cost of their product and heavily promote the benefit side of artificial sweeteners. Studies shows that artificial sugar does help to cut sugar calories low but on the other the population is getting more over weight on correlation with the use of artificial sugar. People tend to consume more calories from other food instead. Real sugar allows your body to accurately determine that it has received enough calories, thereby activating satiety signaling. Without the calories, your appetite is activated by the sweet taste, but as your body keeps waiting for the calories to come, sensations of hunger remain. Nonetheless many have criticized artificial sugar but it does help to reduce tooth decay and give the privilege of diabetes to satisfy the sweet tooth craving. After all artificial sugar can only assist with cutting down weight if healthy diet and regular exercise is included. Otherwise there won’t be any significant help but opposite effect

Introduction

Obesity is a growing health problem. Obesity is when someone is so overweight that is a threat to their health. Can usefulness and potential of artificial or non-caloric sweetener use as weapons to reduce or control obesity in the general population?

In our modern society with increasingly low cost, high calories food “fast food or junk food”. Processed foods that are high in things like salt, sugars or fat, combined with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, increasing urbanisation and changing modes of transportation, it is no wonder that obesity has rapidly increased in the last few decades, around the world. Globally, more than 1.1 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 312 million of them are obese. In addition, at least 155 million children worldwide are overweight or obese, according to the International Obesity Task Force This task force and the World Health Organization (WHO) have revised the definition of obesity to adjust for ethnic differences, and this broader definition may reflect an even higher prevalence — with 1.7 billion people classified as overweight worldwide. The prevalence of chronic, no communicable diseases is increasing at an alarming rate. About 18 million people die every year from cardiovascular disease, for which hypertension and diabetes are major predisposing factors. (Haslam DW, 2005)

With so many options available can sugar replacer or artificial sugar use as a weapon to fight obesity. A sugar substitute or sweeteners are defined as food additives that are used to give a sweet taste or as a sweetener that duplicates the effect of sugar in taste, but usually has less food energy. It is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. Sweeteners are classified into high intensity or bulk. High intensity sweeteners possess a sweet taste, have greater sweetness than sugar, and don’t add bulk to food and no calories. On the other hand, bulk sweeteners are generally carbohydrate that provides energy (calories) and bulk to food. Some sugar substitutes are natural and some are synthetic. Those that are not natural are, in general, referred to as artificial sweeteners. In the Australia, this is the few of the approved sugar substitutes have been approved to use. Below are list of some of the approved artificial sweeter and some of its background. (Weihrauch & Diehl, 2004)

Table 1. Sweeteners used in Australia, relative sweetness to sucrose and example products using the sweeteners (Rachel C, 2010)

Table 2: Artificial sweeteners and their chemical structure . “A sweetness value of 600 means it is 600 times sweeter than sucrose “ (FAIA, 2008)

Chemical Structure | Sweetness Value | Description | | 180 | Aspartame is a dipeptide. It is a compound of two amino acids joined together (aspartic acid and phenylalanine). Only a very small amounts are needed for sweetening purposes | | 200 | Acesulfame-K is a synthetic compound that acts as a synergist with other sweeteners. This means that a mixture of two sweeteners can be sweeter than an equal quantity of either sweetener alone | | 300 | Saccharin is a synthetic compound. The taste of saccharin is not ideal when used alone or at high concentrations. It synergises well with acesulfame-K and is often used in this way | | 30 | Cyclamate are not as sweet as most of the other intense sweeteners and its taste is not ideal at higher concentrations but it is well suited for blending with other sweeteners | | 600 | Sucralose is modified sucrose. This results in the body not being able to use it for energy and so whilst it retains the sweet taste of sugar it has no calories. It is also one of the strongest of the artificial sweeteners |

Aspartame
Aspartame, was discovered accidentally in 1965 by James M. Schlatter at G.D. Searle Co. is a low-calorie sweetener with a sugar-like taste but is approximately 180-200 times sweeter than sucrose but lacks in aftertaste. It is unique among low-calorie sweeteners in that it is completely broken down by the body to its components. The amino acids, aspartic acid, phenylalanine and a small amount of ethanol. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and other international regulatory agencies have approved aspartame for general use in a range of foods. (Sardesai & Waldshan, 1991)
Saccharin
Saccharin (SAC) is characterized as an artificial high-intensity sweetener. First artificial sweetener and was originally synthesized in 1879 by Remsen and Fahlberg. It is also called non-nutritive sweetener, and today is commonly used in the food industry and has been used as a non-caloric sweetener in foods and beverages for more than 100 years. It is 300 to 500 times sweeter than sugar and is often used to improve the taste of toothpastes, dietary foods, and dietary beverages. One animal study has shown that consumption of products containing saccharin may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic and physiological processes (Hampton T, 2008 )
Sucralose
Sucralose was discovered by British researchers in 1976 by carbohydrate research chemists at Queen Elizabeth College and Tate and Lyle It is the only non-caloric sweetener made from sugar and considered as a latest international Zero-Calorie sugar substitute. It is a chlorinated sugar that is about 600 times as sweet as sugar used as a replacement for sugar in more than 4,000 food products and beverages, frozen desserts, chewing gum, baked goods, and other foods. Unlike other artificial sweeteners, it is stable when heated and can therefore be used in baked and fried goods. . Sucralose is minimally absorbed by the body and most of it passes out of the body unchanged (Grotz VL, Henry RR, McGill JB, et al, 2003)
Acesulfame K
Acesulfame potassium “ASK-K” is a non-caloric sweetener with a clean, quickly perceptible sweet taste. It has excellent stability under high temperatures and has good solubility. So it is suitable for numerous products and therefore, highly concentrated solutions suitable for household use can be manufactured. They are exclusively used for low-calorie intake that helps obese consumers to maintain their weight. It is also medically suggested to diabetics to use foods containing these two artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. Similarly, no problems have been reported for the dissolution of tablets or powders. The taste is often accompanied by a bitter and metallic aftertaste and does not provide the same taste of regular sugar (Helstad, 2006).

Cyclamate

Cyclamate (cyclohexyl sulfamic acid monosodium salt) is an artificial sweetener that is 30 times sweeter than sugar. It has been widely used in low-calorie foods and beverages. Evaluations by the Cancer Assessment Committee of the Centre for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition of the FDA, by the SCF of the European Union, and by the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that cyclamate is not a carcinogen. (Kroger M, Meister K, Kava R., 2006).

Use of artificial sweetener cut a massive cost for food manufacturer as compare as using normal sugar. Many manufactures have replaced the traditional sugar or corn syrup with artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners cost the industry only a fraction of the cost of natural sweeteners. Thus many big industries have taken advantage of these many artificial sweeteners which have minimal or zero calories. Invested a lot of money on research benefit of sweeteners. Promoting their health’s and benefits such as low fat, fat free and low calories products.
Whist it has been show artificial sweeteners showing that saccharin and aspartame help to lose weight. The belief that artificially sweetened foods and beverages will help you lose weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. New Study Negates Weight Management Claims of Artificial Sweeteners The featured study, published in the January 2012 issue of the journal Appetite (Journal Appetite, 2012) was done by a Brazilian research team with the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University. Rats were fed plain yogurt sweetened with aspartame, saccharin, or sugar, plus their regular rat chow, for 12 weeks. "Results showed that addition of either sucralose or aspartame to yogurt resulted in increased weight gain compared to addition of sucrose, however total caloric intake was similar among groups," the researchers write. The reason for the similar calorie consumption between the groups was due to increased show consumption by the rats given artificially sweetened yoghurt. This type of compensation has been found in previous studies as well, indicating that when your body gets a hit of sweet taste without the calories to go with it, it adversely affects your appetite control mechanisms, causing increased food cravings. (Daniel JW, Renwick AG, Roberts A, Sims J. 2000).( Swithers SE1, Davidson TL. 2008)
Actually Gain Weight by Using "Artificial Sweeteners A 2010 scientific review published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine(YJBM) discussed the neurobiology of sweet cravings and the unexpected effect of artificial sweeteners on appetite control. It cites several large scale prospective cohort studies that found positive correlations between artificial sweetener use and weight gain, which flies in the face of "conventional wisdom" to cut calories in order to lose weight. "The San Antonio Heart Study rev Med. 1986 examined 3,682 adults over a seven- to eight-year period in the 1980s. When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption. Average BMI gain was +1.01 kg/m2 for control and 1.78 kg/m2 for people in the third quartile for artificially sweetened beverage consumption. (Stern MP, Pugh JA, Gaskill SP. 1989).

Aspartame can still raise your insulin and leptin levels. Elevated insulin and leptin levels, in turn, are two of the driving forces behind obesity, diabetes, and a number of our current chronic disease epidemics. Over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to it, just as your body can become resistant to insulin, and once that happens, your body can no longer "hear" the hormonal messages instructing your body to stop eating, burn fat, and maintain good sensitivity to sweet tastes in your taste buds.
In essence, real sugar allows your body to accurately determine that it has received enough calories, thereby activating satiety signaling. Without the calories, your appetite is activated by the sweet taste, but as your body keeps waiting for the calories to come, sensations of hunger remain (H. L. Wang et.al. 1962)
Though they often get criticized, artificial sweeteners actually do have their advantages. Some Contain Zero Calories When you eat foods that contain natural sugar or high fructose corn syrup, you're taking in a certain amount of calories from these foods. In fact, you could be getting as many as 700 calories per day by eating foods and drinking beverages that contain high fructose corn syrup. You could cut all of these calories by eating foods that contain artificial sweeteners. (Bellisle F, Drewnowski A.2007).

Some won't result in tooth rot on the grounds that sugar is bad for your teeth. The makers of a few brands of manufactured sweeteners remembered this when making their items. You can utilize some artificial sweeteners that won't cause decay on teeth. This might be unbelievably advantageous for you in the event that you've experienced issues with your teeth previously.
Some are useful for diabetics in the event that you experience the ill effects of diabetes; you're compelled to always screen your glucose. In any case, some artificial sweeteners will permit you to quit stressing. You can add your artificial sweeteners to sweeten up a beverage and not need to stress over it influencing your glucose levels. This makes some manufactured sweeteners a solid elective for those diabetics.
Though there are some artificial sweeteners out there that have their advantages, it's important for you to keep one thing in mind: The tests and studies done on artificial sweeteners are still going on. Some people choose to limit their food energy intake by replacing high energy sugar or corn syrup with other sweeteners having little or no food energy (sugar substitutes). This allows them to eat the same foods they normally would, while allowing them to lose weight and avoid other problems associated with excessive calorie intake. (Gardner C, Wylie-Rosett J, Gidding SS, et al. 2012)
Conclusion
Low-calorie sweeteners and diminished calorie items are not enchantment slugs, which mean utilizing these items won't bring about programmed weight reduction. Rather, individuals looking to lose or keep up weight, can utilize low-calorie sweeteners notwithstanding different devices, (for example, share control, exercise, and so on.) to help deal with their calories." Dr. Drewnowski co-composed a late research survey of low-calorie sweeteners, distributed in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which found that low-calorie sweeteners and the items that hold them can help individuals diminish their calorie admission and were connected with unobtrusive weight reduction.
Roughly eight out of ten Americans are expending low and decreased calorie nourishments and drinks, as stated by the Calorie Control Council's latest national shopper review. The Council, a non-benefit exchange affiliation, has noted that this number will probably keep on riing as more customers start to comprehend that "calories check" for weight reduction and weight support. (S Phelan, W Lang, D Jordan and R R Wing, 28 July 2009)

Effective weight management for individuals and groups at risk of developing obesity involves a range of long-term strategies. These include prevention, weight maintenance, management of co-morbidities and weight loss. They should be part of an integrated, multi-sectoral, population-based approach, which includes environmental support for healthy diets and regular physical activity. Key elements include:

Creating supportive population-based environments through public policies that promote the availability and accessibility of a variety of low-fat, high-fibre foods, and that provide opportunities for physical activity. Promoting healthy behaviours to encourage, motivate and enable individuals to lose weight by eating more fruit and vegetables, as well as nuts and whole grains; - engaging in daily moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes (Soo M, Hyunah K, Eunhee Ji, Nayoung H. 2014)

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