Aspartame - In or Out?

So I have quit lollies, ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, and even booze. 100% gone, all of it. Yet my morning wake-up blood sugar remains at about 14, as in about double what it should be.

Ok, so these changes have only been made over the last 1-2 weeks, with booze the last cab off the rank, and as wifey says, what takes years to accumulate quite likely will take years to rectify. She meant that with regards to weight gain, but I think the principle is largely true overall for all health related matters.

Still, it's a frigging pain in the arse, I was really hoping for some, even small improvement in sugar levels after the major lifestyle changes I have made recently. Not to be, not at this time, so it seems. I am seeing a doctor on Friday, so I suspect that will lead to some tests, specifically to look at diabetes, and also organ function. These factors, particularly the latter, may well be having a big say on why my sugar hasn't moved as yet. I may need medication, and who the fuck knows what else. We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

But, and yeah it took me a while to get here, but it's my blog! Yes, but, my clever wife spelled something out to me today - yes I do eat and drink more than her, but that's probably proportional to our size difference. In general, apart from my occasional sneaky chocolate bars, we eat and drink the same things. Yet her blood sugar this morning was 4.3, and as perfect as you can get. She, as she has done many times before, asked about my diet drinks - specifically Coke No Sugar, which is artificially sweetened by aspartame. We have read somewhere before that it is so effective an artificial sweetener that it actually fools your brain and body into thinking you've had sugar, so they react accordingly. Up until now I had been dismissive of this, as it is proven there are no calories in this stuff. So how can it have an impact? Well, blood sugar isn't just about what you ingest, it's also about your organs and how your body deals with what you eat and drink. Anyhow, while we were talking, I remembered something from the old Brisbane days: Ketosis.

Ketosis is a state your body can get into where it starts eating itself, because you are not ingesting enough carbohydrates, or something like that. In order to achieve this state, one essentially needs to stop eating and drinking carbs, so bread, rice, potatoes, sugar, all out. That obviously makes sense. However, an interesting aspect of this diet was that while some diet drinks with artificial sweeteners were ok, those with aspartame were not, because of their effect of fooling your body. I did manage to find a local alternative that didn't use this sweetener (Kirks?) and got through the month ok. In fact I lost 10kg during the process and was pretty chuffed with that. Since though, apart from a eat-anything diet, I have also been regularly consuming diet coke. Except in Kupang where I couldn't easily get it, initially. And I lost weight there...

www.sciencedirect.com seems to think it's safe for all, including diabetics. So does the Mayo Clinic and numerous others. However, studies have proven that aspartame blocks the gut enzyme IAP, which directly impacts on the metabolic syndrome, issues concerning diabetes, heart condition and obesity. Fucking yikes.

Pepsi is dropping it in its diet drinks in the US but not elsewhere. Apparently this is to allay the fears of consumers, but it does appear there is something to this. In studies, mice who had aspartame in their diet all had elevated blood sugar. Sound familiar?

I am not going to list all the articles etc that I have gone through here, but what I did read today, coupled with what I already knew and what I had forgotten but have since remembered, all lead to the same conclusion. I need to add aspartame laced drinks to the list of things I am giving up. Frankly, if I go off this shit for a year who knows, maybe the rest won't be so bad after all. It does seem to be a key common denominator after all.

So there you go. Goodbye Coke No Sugar, Coke Zero, Diet Coke. I have enjoyed you, but it appears you have been silently killing me. Time to move on.