4 Dangerous Effects Of Artificial Sweeteners

For some time now, eating sugar-sweetened foods and beverages has been identified as the cause of any number of negative health prospects, including being overweight or even obese, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. Because of these findings, many health care experts have proposed that non-caloric, high-intensity sweeteners (such as saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose) provide, if not a beneficial alternative to sugar, at least a less damaging one. Many people switched from regular soft drinks to 'diet' versions of the same and started checking the labels on other foods and beverages to make sure they were made with something other than sugar.

Yet many other claims --- confusing claims --- have been cited over the years. Studies spanning the past 40 years have suggested alternately that sugar-substitutes may be 'potentially helpful,' 'potentially harmful,' or have 'unclear effects' with regard to your health. New evidence, in fact, states that people who frequently consume sugar substitutes may be at an increased risk of excessive weight gain, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Truth is, when it comes to artificially-sweetened beverages, as few as one of these drinks per day may be enough to significantly increase the risk for a number of health problems.

Weight Gain

The San Antonio Heart Study documented weight change in men and women over a seven- to eight-year period and offers evidence that weight gain and obesity were significantly greater in those drinking diet beverages compared with those who did not drink them. In another study, where the participants were adolescents, intake of artificially-sweetened beverages was associated with increased body mass index and increased body fat percentage in males and females at a two-year follow-up. Meanwhile, in Australia, where drinking artificially-sweetened beverages has increased while drinking sugar-sweetened beverages has declined, the rate of obesity has not decreased but been on the rise.

Metabolic syndrome

Various studies have reported greater risk of metabolic syndrome for consumers of diet soft drinks. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, a high blood sugar level, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels — that occur together, and increase your risk of stroke, heart disease, and other diseases. Recent studies suggest that those who drink artificially-sweetened beverages may have double the risk of metabolic syndrome, compared with non-consumers. In studies that compared the risk of metabolic syndrome in people who drank either sugar-sweetened or artificially-sweetened beverages, the magnitude of the increased risk was frequently similar for both regular and diet beverage consumers.

Type 2 diabetes

In a European study, the risk for developing type 2 diabetes more than doubled for participants in the highest quartile of diet beverage consumption, compared with non-consumers. Of course, sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was also associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Data from the Nurses' Health Study also indicated that risk for type 2 diabetes was amplified in those consuming at least one diet drink or sugar-sweetened drink per day; the same evidence was found by a European investigation into cancer and nutrition. Importantly, a pronounced spike in the risk of type 2 diabetes related to drinking artificially-sweetened beverages was seen even in those participants who were at a normal weight at the start of the study.

Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease

Within given age groups, the risk for coronary heart disease was significantly elevated in women who consumed more than two artificially-sweetened beverages per day or more than two sugar-sweetened beverages per day. Similarly, another study shows the risk of coronary heart disease was significantly elevated by both types of drinks. Consuming at least one artificially-sweetened beverage daily significantly elevated risk for hypertension for women in a number of studies; the same effect was found when the women in the study drank sugar-sweetened beverages. Results from another study indicated that daily consumption of artificially-sweetened beverages showed significantly increased risk of vascular events, equal in magnitude to daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Why?

Taken together, findings from all of the studies suggest that consuming artificial sweeteners is just as bad for you as sugar... and artifical sweeteners may even exacerbate the negative effects of sugar. Meanwhile, both the availability and the consumption of artificial sweeteners have been steadily increasing in the U.S. Roughly one-third of adults and 15 percent of children aged two to 17 years old report consumption of low-calorie sweeteners in the years 2007 and 2008.  The current public health message to limit the intake of sugars needs to be expanded to limit intake of all sweeteners, not just sugars.

One interesting hypothesis as to the reason for these negative effects is that consuming sweet-tasting but noncaloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages interferes with learned responses and your natural ability to adjust to glucose and energy and create an internal equilibrium. Frequent consumption of high-intensity sweeteners may have counterintuitive effects that mess with your metabolism. In fact, people who regularly consume artificial sweeteners show altered activation patterns in the brain's pleasure centers in response to sweet taste, suggesting that these products may not satisfy the desire for sweets. Studies in mice and rats have shown that consumption of noncaloric sweeteners dampens their physiological responses to sweet taste and causes the animals to overindulge in calorie-rich, sweet-tasting food and so pack on extra pounds.

Natural Remedies for Menopause Relief

Menopause is a completely natural biological process, and therefore not a problem to solve. And although it concludes the time in a woman’s life for fertility, you can stay healthy, vital and sexual through your 50s and well beyond. That being said, there is generally a hormonal shift that occurs in women during menopause that may lead to mood swings, hot flashes, insomnia and other common symptoms.

What types of things can you do to help get find relief from menopause symptoms?

First and foremost, it’s important to realize that in most women, symptoms such as night sweats will decrease over time and then often go away completely without any treatment, including hormone replacement drugs. As the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care puts it, “Menopause is not an illness. It is normal for hormone levels to fall in middle age. These hormones do not need to be replaced.” 

Natural remedies for menopause symptoms — meaning those that don’t involve taking hormone replacement therapy drugs — are safe and can be helpful during this transition phase to decrease symptom severity and duration. These include eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, taking certain beneficial supplements to balance hormones, and using natural herbal treatments, such as black cohosh and progesterone cream.

The Most Common Menopause Symptoms

Women can experience a variety of symptoms and conditions related to changes in sex hormone levels and aging. Some of the most common menopause symptoms include: 

• Irregular periods: As perimenopause begins (the period before menopause technically starts), periods can come and go, plus get heavier or lighter at times. This can sometimes continue for several years during menopause

• Hot flashes and night sweats

• Mood swings, irritability, anxiety or depressive symptoms

• Vaginal dryness and decreased sex drive

• Increased abdominal fat and weight gain

• Insomnia and changes in sleep quality

• Thinning hair and dryer skin

• Going to the bathroom more often

• Breast changes (including breasts becoming smaller or losing volume)

• Changes in the uterus, ovaries and cervix

• For some, a higher risk for certain other age-related diseases (including cardiovascular diseases, dementia and osteoporosis)

The Causes of Menopause

Wondering what causes symptoms like hot flashes, or how you can stop insomnia or night sweats?

Menopause is caused by hormonal changes, including altered levels of reproductive hormones including: gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), estrogen (three types including estrone, estridiol and estriol), progesterone and testosterone. 

Menopause is a complex biological process, but the most significant changes taking place in a woman body during this time are that there’s increasing loss of ovarian follicles (called follicular astresia) and, therefore, a decreasing amount of estrogen being produced. Estrogen levels start to drop 6–12 months before menopause (during perimenopause, usually in the late 30s and 40s) and continue throughout the menopause process.

Natural Treatment for Menopause

Eat Foods that Help Manage Menopause Symptoms

When trying to balance hormones and reduce menopause symptoms, your diet should include plenty of essential minerals and healthy fats healthy fats.  Filling up on the following foods which are “hormone-balancing,” nutrient-dense and unprocessed can help you eliminate your intake of empty calories and manage weight gain.

Keep in mind that you might need to consume less calories overall in order to maintain your weight as you get older. Due to a decrease in muscle mass and slowing of your metabolism, it’s more important than ever to limit processed foods and focus on eating a clean diet. 

Foods that can help manage menopause symptoms include:

• Organic fruits and vegetables: These contain dietary fiber to manage your appetite, antioxidants to slow the aging process and phytosterols that can help balance hormones.

• Cruciferous vegetables: Vegetables in the cruciferous family such as broccoli, cabbage and kale contain indole-3-carbinol, which naturally helps to balance estrogen levels. These veggies are also high in fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K and electrolytes that are important for blood pressure and heart health.

• High-fiber foods: Fiber is important for cardiovascular and digestive health, plus maintaining a healthy weight. Some studies have even found that diets higher in fiber might help to balance production of estrogen. High-fiber diets are associated with less weight gain, healthier cholesterol levels and reduced constipation. Some of the best sources include nuts, seeds, legumes/beans, ancient grains, avocado, veggies and fruit.

• Natto: Fermented soy like natto contains a phytoestrogen that can help balance hormones. However, avoid this if you have had estrogen-positive breast cancer in the past.

• Phytoestrogen food: Phytoestrogens are plant-based estrogens that can mimic the effects of natural hormones your body produces. Their effects are controversial, so the research on their benefits or risks can seem overwhelming and conflicting. However, a large variety of studies have proved these dietary estrogens actually help some women during menopause by reducing cancer risk, reducing night flashes, protecting the heart and making a decrease in natural estrogen feel less drastic.

• Omega-3 fats: Omega-3 fats from fish and flaxseed can protect the heart, promote smooth skin and help to counteract inflammation from omega-6 fats (found mostly in refined oils and low quality meat). Some of the best sources include wild-caught salmon, halibut, sardines, mackerel and anchovies. Studies show that frequently consuming omega-3s facilitates in hormone production and might help to prevent preeclampsia, postpartum depression menopausal problems, 

postmenopausal osteoporosis, heart complications, depression and breast cancer. 

• Healthy fats and cold-pressed oils: It’s true that fats have more calories than protein or carbohydrates do, but they are also the building blocks for hormone production, keep inflammation levels low, boost your metabolism and promote satiety that is important for preventing weight gain. Unrefined oils provide essential vitamin E that helps regulate estrogen production. Look for virgin coconut oil, palm oil, extra-virgin olive oil and flaxseed oil. Other sources of healthy fats include avocado, coconut milk, nuts, seeds and wild seafood.

• Probiotic foods: Probiotics are healthy bacteria that can actually improve your production and regulation of key hormones like insulin, ghrelin and leptin. They’re even capable of raising immune function and protecting cognitive functioning. The best sources include yogurt, kefir, cultured veggies such as sauerkraut or kimchi, kombucha and other fermented foods.

• Water: Aim for 8 glasses daily to help replace fluid lost from hot flashes and to decrease bloating.

Lose Weight With Creative Visualization

It is a known fact that thoughts and emotions affect the body for better or worse, depending on your predominant thoughts and emotions. Negative thinking, stress, fear, excitement, worry and anger hurt the body. Under these conditions the body releases toxins into the blood, which affect it adversely.

Positive thinking, happiness, love and confidence heal, strengthen and energize the body.

You can use the connection between the mind and the body to your advantage. The subconscious mind accepts, and treats both real conditions and mentally imagined conditions as real. This means that if you visualize yourself as being slim, your subconscious mind will accept what you visualize as true, and will act to make your body conform to your mental image.

Losing weight with the help of creative visualization can be termed as a "mental diet". Of course, the chances of success will be greater, if in addition to visualization you reduce the amount of food you eat, follow a diet and exercise your body.

Tips for losing weight through visualization:

# Two or three times a day, sit down for several minutes in a quiet place, and visualize your body as you wish it to be. Leave your worries, doubts and other thoughts behind, and concentrate on what you are doing.

# See yourself slim and beautiful, with your ideal weight. Forget how you look now. You are creating a new reality. See yourself at the beach or pool wearing a swimming suit. See how gorgeous you look. Imagine yourself wearing all those tight clothing that you have always wanted to wear.

# Visualize your family and friends complimenting you about how gorgeous your body looks and how slim you look now. Look at the whole scene as real, and as happening right now at the present moment, not in the future.

# You can construct in your mind any other scene you wish. You can see yourself exercising, dancing, with friends, with your husband or wife, at work, etc. See yourself moving and in action. Hear people complimenting you about your slim body, and see their admiring glances. In short, make the mental image as real as possible.

# Construct in your mind images that ignite your emotions. Make them alive and colorful. Make the scenes in your mind interesting and real, and see yourself in each scene as slim, the way you will look after you lose weight.

# Never visualize that you are disgusted with food or with eating, and do not develop a loathing for any kind of food. By visualizing your body as you wish it to look, your subconscious mind will direct you to eat the appropriate food in the right quantities.

# While visualizing, and after finishing your visualization session, don't tell yourself: "well, it is all nonsense, I cannot lose weight". If you say these words you destroy all the work you have done. When thoughts of disbelief crawl into your mind do not listen to them. Let only thoughts of your ideal body shape enter and pass through your mind.

As in everything else in life, persistence is important.

Creative visualization can help you lose weight in a most natural way.

• It can make you desire to reduce the quantities of food that you eat.

• Your body can be taught to be satisfied with smaller quantities of food.

• Creative visualization can attract to you the diet that suits you most.

• It might lead you to desire to participate in some physical exercises that will reduce your weight.

The way you think affects your body. Think on what you want to achieve, not what you want to avoid. Think about how you want to look, not about being overweight. Visualize your body as you want it to look, not as it looks now. Do not concern yourself too much with what to eat or not to eat, but with how you want your body to be. Persist with your efforts, and you will start seeing results.

It is most important to believe what you visualize. Forget past failures to lose weight and reject disbelief, doubts and negative thoughts. Keep projecting your ideal figure on the screen of your mind, and your disbelief and inner resistance will begin to fade away.

Why is it important to eat food that’s in season?

Seasonal food is fresher, tastier and more nutritious than food consumed out of season. Even though we all like to eat strawberries year round, the best time to eat them is when they can be purchased directly from a local grower shortly after harvest. Seasonal fruits and vegetables produced on local farms are often fresher, as they do not require long distances for transport. Also, unlike out of season produce which is harvested early in order to be shipped and distributed to your local retail store, crops picked at their peak of ripeness are also better tasting and full of flavor. What’s more, studies have shown that fruits and vegetables contain more nutrients when allowed to ripen naturally on their parent plant.

Why is eating local food important?

• Local food benefits the environment. Purchasing locally grown foods helps support local farms and maintains farmland and open space in your community. A recent USDA study also found that direct-to-consumer producers were less likely to apply pesticides and herbicides to control weeds and insects than conventional producers (with the exception of chemicals to control insects and weeds in fruit, nut and berry crops).

• Local food supports the local economy. The money you spend on products from local farmers and growers stays in the community and is reinvested with other local businesses. In addition, food grown locally, processed locally and distributed locally (for example, to local restaurants) generates jobs and subsequently helps stimulate local economies.

• Local growers can tell you how the food was grown. When you buy directly from farmers, you have the opportunity to ask what practices they use to raise and harvest the crops. When you know where your food comes from and who grew it, you know a lot more about your food

Where can I find recipes for the local, seasonal produce on this site?

You can find lots of wonderful recipes for even the most obscure local and seasonal produce in our Real Food Right Now series.

Where can I buy local, seasonal produce in my state?

Most of the produce included in the Seasonal Food Guide can be found at your local farmers’ market, through local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)programs operating in your area and at restaurants and businesses committed to seasonal, local food.

What Is Tabata Training?

The History of Tabata

Tabata training was discovered by Japanese scientist Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo.

Tabata and his team conducted research on two groups of athletes. The first group trained at a moderate intensity level while the second group trained at a high-intensity level. The moderate intensity group worked out five days a week for a total of six weeks; each workout lasted one hour. The high-intensity group worked out four days a week for six weeks; each workout lasted four minutes and 20 seconds (with 10 seconds of rest in between each set).

The results; Group 1 had increased their aerobic system (cardiovascular), but showed little or no results for their anaerobic system (muscle). Group 2 showed much more increase in their aerobic system than Group 1, and increased their anaerobic system by 28 percent.

In conclusion, high-intensity interval training has more impact on both the aerobic and anaerobic systems.

The Tabata Program

Each exercise in a given Tabata workout lasts only four minutes, but it's likely to be one of the longest four minutes you've ever endured. The structure of the program is as follows:

• Work out hard for 20 seconds

• Rest for 10 seconds

• Complete 8 rounds

You push yourself as hard as you can for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds. This is one set. You'll complete eight sets of each exercise. 

You can do pretty much any exercise you wish. You can do squats, push-ups, burpees or any other exercise that works your large muscle groups. Kettlebell exercises work great, too.

An example of a Tabata workout looks like this:

1. Push-ups (4 minutes) 

2. Bodyweight Squats (4 minutes)

3. Burpees (4 minutes)

4. Mountain Climbers (4 minutes)

Start with push-ups. Perform them for 20 seconds at a high-intensity. Rest for 10 seconds, and then go back to doing push-ups for 20 seconds. Once you complete eight sets of push-ups, rest for one minute.

Next, move on to squats and repeat the sequence of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Once you finish eight sets of squats, rest for one minute, and then do burpees. After burpees, finish the workout with mountain climbers.

Tabata is great to get a quick workout in if you're short on time, you need to switch up your routine, or you want improve endurance and speed. Incorporate this type of workout into your fitness routine and produce results.

Sample Tabata Workouts and Exercises:

• 30-Minute Bodyweight Tabata Workout
• 20-Minute Tabata Core Workout
• 30-Minute Kettlebell Tabata Workout
• 30-Minute Medicine Ball Tabata Workout
• 11 Butt Kicking Tabata Exercises
• Tabata for Beginners

Go Ahead... Take That Vacation!

Americans generally believe that they need to “deserve” their vacations—that they should work hard, even push themselves, before they actually take a break. 

Consider these statistics:  

• Although Americans have fewer vacation days than people in any other country, they have been taking less and less vacation over the last 15 years. 

• Fifty-five percent of Americans did not use all their vacation days in 2017.

• Even when they actually do take vacation, 41 percent are checking into work while away (i.e., they are not fully unplugging).

• 84 percent of U.S. executives have cancelled vacations in order to work.

There may be cultural reasons for this phenomenon. Countries most influenced by the Protestant work ethic, like the United States, place a lot of value on industriousness and proving oneself — as opposed to countries influenced by Catholicism, which is a salvation-based religion. In Catholic-influenced France, for example, 90 percent of people take all of their vacation days (despite having more than twice as many —30!—as most Americans).

Ironically, while Americans may pride themselves on their hard work and dedication, research suggests that we will actually work harder, perform better, and have greater health, stamina, and enthusiasm for our work if we take time off. 

Three ways vacation is good for you

Research suggests that leisure is an important predictor of our well-being and satisfaction with life, including our health, work engagement, creativity, and even marital satisfaction. 

1. Vacation is relaxing. We often take vacations in order to relax, but do they actually work? Scientists out of the University of California, San Francisco, examined this question with a rigorous study: They looked at the impact of a resort vacation and a meditation retreat on biological measures of stress and immune function. The data showed that a resort vacation not only makes us feel more energetic and less stressed than we were before we took the vacation, it also leads to a strong and immediate impact on molecular networks associated with stress and immune function. Participants who attended the meditation retreat also showed a boost in antiviral activity.

So pick your favorite leisure activity: surfing in the sun and hanging under the cabana, or sitting on a zafu and taking yoga. 

2. Breaks make you more productive. Another personal and professional advantage of taking vacations is the ability to detach from work.

Sabine Sonnentag, professor of organizational psychology at the University of Mannheim in Germany, finds that the inability to detach from work comes with symptoms of burnout, which of course impact well-being and productivity. However, disengaging from work when you are not at work, she finds, makes us more resilient in the face of stress and more productive and engaged at work. Even a short weekend getaway can provide significant work-stress recovery, while longer trips away provide even more relief.

After a vacation, 64 percent of people say that they are "refreshed and excited to get back to my job." It’s a win-win both for employees and organizations alike, especially given the fact that unused vacation costs U.S. business$224 billion per year.  

3. A change of pace boosts creativity. Another professional advantage from taking time off is a boost in creativity. Across countries and industries,CEOs rate  creativity as the #1 most important trait for all incoming employees. Yet researcher Kyung Hee Kim, author of The Creativity Challenge, has shown that we are facing a dramatic "creativity crisis," with creativity scores dropping significantly in younger generations. Here again, more vacations and leisure may help. 

Many workers tend to specialize in their own field, and fail to explore new areas or diversify their interests. Yet research shows that being exposed to new and different experiences actually boosts your creativity. For example, one study showed that hiking in nature disconnected from all devices for four days—a very unusual experience in our day and age—led to a 50 percent spike in creativity. 

Brain imaging studies show that doing nothing, being idle, daydreaming and realxing create alpha waves in the brain that are key to creative insights and innovative breakthroughs. And research by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson has shown that positive emotions—the kind we feel on a relaxing, playful vacation—make us more inventive and able to think outside the box.

How to make the most of your vacation

When planning your time off, keep in mind that all leisure activities are not created equal. A German study comparing different leisure activities showed that while spending time with friends, doing sports, and vacationing boost your well-being substantially, other leisure activities including Internet browsing and TV watching do not; in fact, they lead to lower satisfaction with life. That means that your couch isn’t necessarily the best vacation destination.

Depending on your age and gender, research by Iva Sverko and colleagues has shown, different leisure activities may lead to greater well-being—but for people of all ages, leisure activities like visiting friends and family and going to church are positively linked to well-being. Later in life, for example, social activities seem to be particularly important. This finding makes sense since a large and growing body of research shows that the degree to which we are socially connected across our lifespan significantly improves our physical and psychological health, and even our longevity.

When should you schedule your time away from work? Some of us are so good at delayed gratification that we’re constantly putting off our vacations, thinking we’ll enjoy our “well-deserved” leisure more later—after we write that report, finish that big project, or get a promotion. But this is not necessarily true: A new study shows that fun times are fun times no matter what, and we enjoy them just as much whether they come before or after hard work. Also, the professional and personal benefits that we get from leisure time may help us succeed at our work goals. 

So plan your vacation now. Better yet, don’t get caught up in too much planning. Another recent study suggests that spontaneous leisure activities are more rewarding than planned ones. So let your hair down, play hooky, and let loose once in a while. There’s still some summer left, so enjoy!

It is the position of the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) that massage therapy can improve health and wellness through its effects on the physical, mental and social well-being of an individual.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." With this in mind, it would be appropriate to state that anything that positively impacts the physical, mental and social well-being of an individual as well as possibly decreasing incidence of disease would improve health.

“Quality of life has become a pre-eminent goal of rehabilitation and a key outcome measure in ascertaining the effectiveness of interventions and rehabilitation programs.  Indeed, maintaining or enhancing quality of life is the ultimate goals [sic] of all health-care professional interventions.” Quality of life is regarded as a key determinant of overall health. 

We are now starting to understand how greatly stress negatively impacts our lives, health, well-being and quality of life. Research has shown that massage therapy can have a positive influence with the issue of stress and improving quality of life.

Research is showing us that massage therapy can help in varying populations with:

• Anxiety 

• Depression 

• Boosting immune function 

• Lowering blood pressure 

• Heart rate 

• Decreasing pain 

• Range of motion

• Quality of sleep 

There are some smaller studies indicating massage therapy can help those with dementia, and may improve body image.

Massage therapy helps with various health conditions including but not limited to: headaches, carpal tunnel, post-surgical recovery, burn recovery, fibromyalgia and minimizing side effects of anti-cancer treatments.  

Massage addresses the issues in the WHO's definition of health; it can aid in physical, mental, and social well-being; and it may help prevent disease by improving immune function and reducing stress.