Artificial sweeteners - worse than sugar?

08/25/22 • 14 min

1 Listener

Artificial sweeteners are everywhere. Not only in diet soft drinks but in many foods that you wouldn’t expect. You’ve probably eaten some today without realising.

Sweeteners have been around for over a hundred years yet remain the subject of much debate. It's hard to know how they stack up next to the alternatives.

In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: are artificial sweeteners worse than sugar?

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Studies referenced in the episode:

Stevia Leaf to Stevia Sweetener: Exploring Its Science, Benefits, and Future Potential from The Journal of Nutrition here
Chronic Intake of Commercial Sweeteners Induces Changes in Feeding Behavior and Signaling Pathways Related to the Control of Appetite in BALB/c Mice from Biomed Res Int here

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

Artificial sweeteners are everywhere. Not only in diet soft drinks but in many foods that you wouldn’t expect. You’ve probably eaten some today without realising.

Sweeteners have been around for over a hundred years yet remain the subject of much debate. It's hard to know how they stack up next to the alternatives.

In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: are artificial sweeteners worse than sugar?

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Studies referenced in the episode:

Stevia Leaf to Stevia Sweetener: Exploring Its Science, Benefits, and Future Potential from The Journal of Nutrition here
Chronic Intake of Commercial Sweeteners Induces Changes in Feeding Behavior and Signaling Pathways Related to the Control of Appetite in BALB/c Mice from Biomed Res Int here

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

Previous Episode

Can spices improve your health?

Kanchan Koya grew up in a house filled with wonderful fragrances from the spices simmering on her grandmother’s stove. In India, it was a common belief that spices were more than just pleasant tastes. Ancient wisdom said they had medicinal properties, and it was common for household medicine cabinets to store dried spices, not pills.

Kanchan grew up to become a molecular biologist, studying in the US at Harvard Medical School. When her lab began to investigate turmeric’s healing properties, the ancient wisdom from her childhood met the scientific inquiry of her adult life - beginning a lifelong obsession with the health benefits of spice.

In today’s episode, Kanchan and regular guest Tim Spector help us understand whether there is any scientific evidence to support the health benefits of spices, the easiest way to add spice to our diet, and which ones to choose.

Kanchan Koya is the founder of SpiceSpiceBaby and The Radical Vitality Podcast with a Ph.D. in Biomedicine from Harvard University and training from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.
Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Timecodes:

00:00 - Intro

00:10 - Topic introduction

01:19 - Quickfire questions

02:17 - What is a spice

04:23 - How did Kanchan’s passion for spices begin?

06:56 - What do we know about how spices affect our health?

12:16 - The latest science on spices

17:07 - Which spices are best?

24:46 - How to start using spices?

27:56 - Hacks to start using spices for the best health benefits possible

30:55 - Quality of spices

35:45 - Storage of spices

36:53 - Summary

37:53 - Goodbyes

38:47 - Outro

Episode transcripts are available here.

Read ZOE’s PREDICT Studies here.

Know more about the 5 spices you should embrace here.

Follow Kanchan: https://www.instagram.com/chiefspicemama

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

Next Episode

How to make your body clock work for you

In today’s world, we increasingly live our lives late into the night. Whether it's work obligations, socializing, or being glued to a screen, we ignore the sun's rise and fall.

But most of us are unaware that a clock is ticking away inside us.

It uses light to keep time and tells us when to sleep and eat. Should we listen? Or is this biological clock simply a relic from a past time?

In today’s episode, Jonathan speaks to a leading authority to unravel the latest science that reveals that this body clock, or circadian rhythm, has a dramatic impact on our health, weight, and mental wellbeing:

Russell Foster is an Oxford University scientist who has dedicated his life to studying circadian rhythms. He’s a world leader in the field and the author of Lifetime: the new science of the body clock.

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Timecodes:

00:00 - Intro

00:12 - Topic introduction

01:23 - Quickfire questions

02:30 - What is the biggest myth about our body clock that drives Russell crazy?

03:19 - What are circadian rhythms?

06:41 - Why do they matter to us?

10:32 - How does your body sync its clock?

14:07 - How does the circadian rhythm influence sleep?

15:18 - What happens if we don’t live alongside our circadian rhythms?

21:26 - What should night workers do?

26:45 - Does your circadian rhythm change when going through menopause?

29:42 -Is there a circadian rhythm for our gut?

33:12 - Will it damage our long-term health to continuously be awake by our small children?

35:15 - Summary

36:14 - Goodbyes

36:36 - Outro

Episode transcripts are available here.

Get Russell’s book here.

Follow Russell: https://twitter.com/oxscni

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

ZOE Science & Nutrition - Artificial sweeteners - worse than sugar?

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jonathan Wolf: Hello, and welcome to Zoe Shorts the bite-size podcast, where we discuss one topic around science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolf. And as always, I'm joined by Dr Sarah Barry today's subject is artificial sweetness.

[00:00:22] Sarah Berry: So Jonathan artificial sweeteners are everywhere, not just in diet soft drinks, as many of us think, but they're throughout all kinds of processed foods. And maybe in some places that you wouldn't even expect. As they becom