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Author Topic: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?  (Read 4626 times)

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Offline T_Bone

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2004, 05:33:01 PM »
I use DDT.
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Offline KennyR

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #15 on: August 24, 2004, 05:51:47 PM »
We know, evil conservative.
 

Offline x56h34

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #16 on: August 24, 2004, 06:02:22 PM »
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Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?


You have no chance to survive. Make your time. Ha, ha, ha!
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #17 on: August 24, 2004, 07:11:57 PM »
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KennyR wrote:
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Quite odd that water itself is taseless, eh ? :-D


Not really Karlos, you know that water dissociates into polar hydronium and hydroxide ions, don't you? :)


Of course (I was also joking), but the dissociation constant for water is pretty damn small. The vast majority of any quantity of water consists of HOH at any given instant. Of course, in the next instant it isn't neccessarily the same set of molecules you just looked at, thanks the chain propagation mechanism that allows the ultra high mobility of hydronium ions ;-)

Water. Funkier than most people realise...
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #18 on: August 24, 2004, 07:32:07 PM »
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KennyR wrote:





Dug around my old notes. Sterically, -Cl isn't as big as -OH as the latter occupies a larger volume (think of the overall space occupuied by that group rotating though every degree of freedom it has). However looks like that's not the main issue here. The -Cl in this molecule are strategically placed where most metabolic agents try to bond with. You can't shove your phoshphate linkage onto the CH2-Cl unit like you should be able to with the original CH2-OH, so there isn't anything for the activating enzymes to get hold of.

Structurally however, there is nothing immediately obvious (to my eye) that prevents that molecule dissosiating into a seperate chlorinated glucose / fructose pair - the centeral linkage is not protected by anything close enough to block dissosiation by acid catalysed hydrolysis.
Again it would seem to come down to the fact that the dissociated molecules still have their most biologically important -OH linkage replaced with -Cl. The glucose unit (left) cannot be added to an existing chain of glucose units  but it could conciveably start a new one. Hence, I'm not totally convinced the body couldn't store this material (although metabolising it is impossible without linking phosphate).
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Offline KennyR

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #19 on: August 24, 2004, 07:59:54 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
Structurally however, there is nothing immediately obvious (to my eye) that prevents that molecule dissosiating into a seperate chlorinated glucose / fructose pair - the centeral linkage is not protected by anything close enough to block dissosiation by acid catalysed hydrolysis.


After a little research, I found that sucralose WILL hydrolyse, but only under "conditions of high temperature and extreme acidity". Apparently the human digestive system does not qualify. It passes right through the body and doesn't trigger insulin, carbohydrate metabolism, digestion, or glucose-sensitive mechanisms. Apparently, its almost totally inert inside us.

If that inertness isn't caused by stearic hindrance then I'm lost for an explanation. Organic chemistry was never my prime forte.
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #20 on: August 24, 2004, 08:23:13 PM »
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KennyR wrote:

If that inertness isn't caused by stearic hindrance then I'm lost for an explanation. Organic chemistry was never my prime forte.


As I say, I'm pretty sure that, metabolically at least, the terminal Cl groups defeat any attempt at activation by phosphorylation, thus denying one's metabolism to get a handle on the thing. Just as well really ;-)
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Offline odin

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #21 on: August 24, 2004, 11:11:59 PM »
But the *main* problem with all the artificial sweeteners I've tasted is that they all taste like dogpoo which has been left rotting under a infrared light for half a year.

Offline Karlos

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #22 on: August 24, 2004, 11:17:31 PM »
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odin wrote:
But the *main* problem with all the artificial sweeteners I've tasted is that they all taste like dogpoo which has been left rotting under a infrared light for half a year.


Man, I'm all for creative culinary flair, but you really need to watch what you go around experimenting with :lol:
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Offline KennyR

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #23 on: August 25, 2004, 12:13:42 AM »
Of course sweeteners are never as nice as sugar. But I consider it worth it to not spend the last 30 years of my life pricking my fingers every four hours to draw blood and test my blood sugar, and stabbing myself with a five inch needle containing insulin after every meal, just to avoid going into shock and dying. And even doing that doesn't mean you wont go blind, lose limbs, or die of kidney or liver damage.

No...I prefer my pancreas actually working. Less sugar means less wear and tear on the insulin cells. That's a good enough reason for me to prefer a bad tasting sugar substitute.
 

Offline odin

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #24 on: August 25, 2004, 12:17:08 AM »
Do you eat abnormal amounts of sugar then?

Now if your were my father, then I'd suggest using sweeteners. He eats so much sugar it's a miracle he doesn't do insuline shots yet :lol:.

-edit crappy grammar-

Offline KennyR

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #25 on: August 25, 2004, 12:23:31 AM »
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Odin wrote:
Now if your were my father, then I'd suggest using sweeteners. He eats so much sugar it's a miracle he doesn't insuline shots yet.


Mine almost does, and it depresses me like you wouldn't imagine. I'm next in line, it runs in my family. Even if I avoid sugar totally, chances are I'll still become diabetic.

Even if it doesn't run in the family, most 25+ people who eat too much sugar will probably already be living in a state of insulin resistance, and aren't more than a decade or two away from full blown Type II diabetes.

It would be great if there wasn't such a culture of over indulgence in the West. But since there is, I'll accept sweeteners as a practical godsend. (Even if they do taste like crap. ;-) )
 

Offline FluffyMcDeath

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #26 on: August 25, 2004, 05:44:18 AM »
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KennyR wrote:
Quote
Odin wrote:
Now if your were my father, then I'd suggest using sweeteners. He eats so much sugar it's a miracle he doesn't insuline shots yet.


Mine almost does, and it depresses me like you wouldn't imagine. I'm next in line, it runs in my family. Even if I avoid sugar totally, chances are I'll still become diabetic.



Which sugars were you thinking of avoiding. If only sucrose, there isn't much point.

Carbs?


As for aspartame, a can of diet pop will decompose to give about as much methanol as you find in a bottle of juice. However, the bottle of juice also contains ethanol which metabolically competes with methanol. The fruit juice also preferentially binds methanol. If you accidentally drink a small quantity of meths, drink a lot of fruit juice!

The body has enzymes to break down ethanol, and the first step is ethanol to acetaldehyde, which is then broken down by other enzyme. When methanol is metabolized, the first step is methanol to formaldehyde, and that is the end of the line. Small amounts of methanol over time will gradually embalm you.
 

Offline KennyR

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #27 on: August 25, 2004, 06:23:29 AM »
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FluffyMcDeath wrote:
Which sugars were you thinking of avoiding. If only sucrose, there isn't much point.

Carbs?


Starches, carageenans, polyols and other carbohydrates are the slow burners. They are invaluable for diabetics because of their slow, constant release rate. Without carbohydrates and sugars, I wouldn't die of diabetes complications, I'd die of starvation, or would end up being forced to overeat to deal with the hypoglycemia caused by lack of available blood glucose. That would trigger hyperglycemia.

Current medical advice is: carbs are good for diabetics. Quick burn sugars are bad. Fats are especially bad, since high cholesterol is a very common side effect of diabetes.

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When methanol is metabolized, the first step is methanol to formaldehyde, and that is the end of the line.


Not true, formaldehyde is metabolised very quickly by the body, into formic acid and paraformaldehyde, and either flushed out or changed into something else. Formaldehyde and methanol is being created in your body right now in fairly large quantities by digestion, and not of aspartame. The actual amount added by aspartame is trivial.
 

Offline FluffyMcDeath

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #28 on: August 25, 2004, 07:11:25 AM »
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KennyR wrote:
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FluffyMcDeath wrote:
Which sugars were you thinking of avoiding. If only sucrose, there isn't much point.

Carbs?


Starches, carageenans, polyols and other carbohydrates are the slow burners.

Eat a plate of pasta and say carbs are slow burners!! Starches are partly lysed to glucose etc before you even finish chewing.


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When methanol is metabolized, the first step is methanol to formaldehyde, and that is the end of the line.


Not true, formaldehyde is metabolised very quickly by the body, into formic acid [...][/quote]


I did not know that, but it seems it is so. In fact it seems that it is the formic acid that does you in...

methanol poisoning.
 

Offline FluffyMcDeath

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Re: Does artificial sweeteners are really that bad?
« Reply #29 from previous page: August 25, 2004, 07:26:48 AM »
@KennyR

and artificial sweetners may cause obesity...

link

which is not a healthy thing even if you are not diabetic.