61–70 of 159 posts
> had 50 percent fewer Bacteroidetes bacteria and 50 percent more Firmicutes bacteria than normal mice did. When they transferred a sample of the Firmicutes bacterial population from the obese mice into normal-weight ones, the normal mice became fatter. Woah. I assume someone is now doing research on introducing Bacteroidetes into the guts of obese people?
Aspartame (Nutrasweet) is pretty controversial in how it got approved by the FDA. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-... When I was 8 years old, I started having grand mal seizures and my parents noted a strong correlation between drinking a Diet Coke and having a seizure. When they eliminated it from my diet, my seizures declined. Fortunately I stopped having seizures around 12 years of…
That article has a lot of fear mongering about artificial sweeteners and then at the bottom an ad for "certifiedorganicevaporatedcanejuice.com". Maybe it's not the most objective source of information?
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Sugar alcohols can have some unpleasant side effects, which make them unpopular for general use. They can cause bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea if you consume too much of them. The pop-culture example of this is the review section on http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-Free-Gummy-Bears/dp/B008J... , or in a less ridiculous form at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol#Safety and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol#Side…
I put two tbsp of xylitol into my smoothies and I've never had a problem. It's also supposed to be good for your teeth. I do wonder how something can be so dangerous for dogs and safe for humans. Aren't our cells almost identical?
I'm not a vet but I'm waiting on some batch tests at work so I did some reading. According to http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/new-findings-effects-xy..., dogs absorb Xylitol much more quickly than rats or humans do. Xylitol also provokes dogs to release insulin, but not people. The reasons behind that are not completely clear to me, but since they quickly and completely absorb Xylitol, they end up producing a ton of insulin very quickly which tanks their blood glucose levels. That's dangerous without any complicating factors.
Additionally, dogs metabolize xylitol differently, and it's thought that a side effect of the metabolization is to deplete adenosine triphosphate in the liver, which can cause liver necrosis (obviously very bad news).
Humans don't absorb xylitol well (it's only partially digestible and some of it acts as dietary fiber, sort of), and we don't metabolize what we do absorb very efficiently. The difference is likely in both the dose relative to body weight, and the intensity (since dogs metabolize it much faster and more completely).
That's all secondhand info though, I don't have a JSTOR or equivalent account so I couldn't read any interesting primary papers. If we coincidentally have a vet wandering through I'd love to learn more about this.
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I'm not sure that stevia is an "artificial" sweetener.
Your body doesn't care whether something was made by humans or whether it was made by nature. It only cares about the particularities of the molecules involved.
> had 50 percent fewer Bacteroidetes bacteria and 50 percent more Firmicutes bacteria than normal mice did. When they transferred a sample of the Firmicutes bacterial population from the obese mice into normal-weight ones, the normal mice became fatter. Woah. I assume someone is now doing research on introducing Bacteroidetes into the guts of obese people?
I know you can buy probiotics. Can you buy just Bacteroidetes ?
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They're likely referring to a ketogenic diet. They were quite common in the past before anticonvulsant meds were created, and are still used in intractable cases today, particularly in pediatric care. There's lots of information out there about their use in epilepsy. Some to get you started: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2898565/ http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/treating-seizures-and-epilepsy... http://www…
Interesting - thanks. [Edit] - The ketogenic diet is interesting. And I can see how some would want to substitute sugar for an artificial sweetener to help achieve a low carb diet. But given Aspartame is a known trigger for many types of seizures, it should be introduced carefully.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sugar alcohols can have some unpleasant side effects, which make them unpopular for general use. They can cause bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea if you consume too much of them. The pop-culture example of this is the review section on http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-Free-Gummy-Bears/dp/B008J... , or in a less ridiculous form at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol#Safety and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol#Side…
I put two tbsp of xylitol into my smoothies and I've never had a problem. It's also supposed to be good for your teeth. I do wonder how something can be so dangerous for dogs and safe for humans. Aren't our cells almost identical?
There's lots of differences in the enzymes that are made though. For example humans are one of the few species that can not make vitamin C.
Usually if you check the reason a food is dangerous for some animal it's that they lack an enzyme needed to degrade it, so it builds up.
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Technically I don't think its artificial. However, I notice that most Stevia products also contain dextrose. I don't think dextrose is considered artificial either but still, it begs the question why Stevia alone isn't enough and/or if dextrose is low or zero calorie then why not just use that?
Friendly correction, "begs the question" doesn't mean what you say in your post. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
I've seen the incorrect usage in very fancy printed reference books.
This is just one of those ways where language changes.
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Interesting - thanks. [Edit] - The ketogenic diet is interesting. And I can see how some would want to substitute sugar for an artificial sweetener to help achieve a low carb diet. But given Aspartame is a known trigger for many types of seizures, it should be introduced carefully.
Do you have a source re: aspartame and seizures? I did a cursory search and the only non-anecdotal thing I could find was a study[1] that showed there was no link in people who described themselves as sensitive. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7614911
Part of it, which isn't covered by these studies, is how a reliance on diet soda affects your diet overall. It serves as a lubricant, for lack of a better word, for dense starchy carbs and salt. I can wolf down french fries with diet soda, but it's a lot harder with just water, which doesn't cut the salt or grease.
My real warning to cut back came from my mouth. I have an autoimmune problem that causes sores similar to cold sores. My salty, sour, spicy diet aggravates it, and the diet soda enables that diet (and is itself acidic). I'm tired of pain, so I'm cutting back.
Lost five pounds in an instant.