Sweetly Decepted

I am a medical doctor and a very health and wellness fanatic. I exercise regularly that is 20 to 30 minutes everyday, I sleep 7 to 8 hours, I take my quality multivitamins, and above it all, I choose my diet very carefully. This attitude of taking care of my health roots to my family’s medical history. We have strong genes of Diabetes. My grandfather and grandmother died of Diabetes. My Mom and Uncle have it. And who’s next? Yeah, I’m very prone of inheriting it and to prevent it, I chose taking charge of my own health.

Part of my healthy diet is refraining from sugar sweetened cakes, pastries, and beverages, instead, I use zero-calorie and sugar-free sweeteners for my coffee and tea. My gum is sugar-free. My cola is zero-calorie and sugar-free. I always bring with me my sugar-free sweetener sachets believing that I will surely prevent myself of having diabetes.

I am including my sweeteners on my daily diet for nearly 3 years already. I’m very glad I’m not gaining wait and my blood sugar is normal until last March (1 month prior to writing this article) I experienced frequent headaches and dizziness usually during the afternoon. The symptoms continued for more than a week and it prompted me to had some medical tests. The tests including an eye and ear check-up were all normal. I am very puzzled that time to why I am experiencing that bothering headaches and dizziness.

It was by chance when while browsing my Facebook notifications, I saw a video posted by an old friend criticizing artificial sweeteners. The video tackled Aspartame and Sucralose, (the ingredients to my artificial sweeteners) as neurotoxic. Based on scientific studies, these artificial sweeteners may cause brain tumors, seizures, cancers, infertility and it includes the symptoms I am experiencing, headaches and dizziness. Urgently I look for scientific articles of the same topic and to my dismay; I found a lot saying that my sweeteners are really poison. Starting that day, I never took any of those artificial sweeteners anymore. I was sweetly deceived by those manufacturers saying that artificial sweeteners were safe. Few days after withdrawing form my artificial sweeteners; my headache and dizziness gradually disappeared.

Up to this day I’m studying alternative sweeteners that are natural, safe and with zero or few calories. Good thing I am learning about honey, xylitol and now Stevia – a natural sweetener that is zero-calorie, zero-glycemic index and is very safe for consumption. Stevia was by Guarani Indians for more than a hundred years, by Japanese by decades and has a very good track of safety. Back in 2006, the WHO cleared stevia as non-carcinogenic and therefore safe. I am now using Stevia and enjoying the sweetness of life. Never again I won’t be sweetly deceived.