Americans consume more than 10 million metric tons of sugar every year. Millions of consumers believe the only way to get their sweetness without sugar is to consume artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose and sorbitol, but there's a steep price to pay for all this "sweet misery." Now, new research shows that fructose and aspartame are both health criminals that do much more damage to the brain than the brain-damaged consumers can ever imagine.
Of course, no one or two clinical studies are the "be-all and end-all" of the conclusion about these toxic products' effects on the body and brain, but let's be honest with ourselves – filtered water and organic tea are safer than consuming any drinks made by corporations in laboratories using genetically modified corn sugar and genetically modified bacteria. Certainly the CDC is not interested in protecting Americans from soda or diet soda, or they would step in and conduct further scientific studies like these two.
The author of the two scientific studies on soda and diet soda found multiple signs of cognitive decline and accelerated brain aging – all risk factors for early-stage Alzheimer's disease. Using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans and cognition tests of 4,000 people who drink soda, fruit juice or diet soda regularly, researchers found these consumers to have smaller brain volume and three times higher risk of stroke and dementia. This figure includes people who drink just one diet soda per day for 10 years.
Surely age, poor diet quality and other factors (like smoking) factor into these dire health results; however, preexisting conditions can't wholly explain the new shocking findings regarding brain size reduction and severe deterioration of memory and learning.
The link between diet soda consumption and dementia was not previously known. It's also possible that artificial sweeteners are transforming gut bacteria and altering the brain's perception of what food is actually "sweet" or not. The body could be getting tricked into ingesting and utilizing carcinogenic material that it would otherwise discard as unusable. Consumers would be wiser (literally) to avoid soda, diet soda, artificial sweeteners and conventional sugar altogether.
Big Food America often tricks consumers into believing there are only two or three choices out there – all of which are toxic. This is called "close by choice" and it's an insidious sales tactic used by marketing professionals focused on their corporations' bottom line. Should you drink regular soda, diet soda, or sports drinks? Which one does your favorite celebrity or sports hero drink? The answer is none. Go organic.
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