Getting sexy arms while battling a sugar addiction is extremely hard. Low calorie sweeteners, however, will appease your sweet tooth while providing negligible amounts of calories.

Seems like a good deal, right?

Well, recent research has been demonstrating that artificial sweeteners are extremely unhealthy to the point of causing cancer.

So here is the truth behind thin arms and artificial sweeteners:

1. They can increase cancer risk. A solid study showed that low calorie sweeteners can increase cancer risk by thirty percent. Not good! The good news, however, is that the increase in cancer was associated with the highest levels of intake.

2. They’re within many products. Companies love to inject their food with abundant and varied quantities of artificial sweeteners because it allows them to market products as being low calorie. So beware and lookout for sweeteners in all places.

3. Safety studies have been short term. All studies showing the safety of sweeteners have been very short term. Even worse, they have been conducted by the companies themselves. Very little unbiased research is out there right now.

4. Aspartame was found to be toxic in rodents. The largest rodent study to have ever been conducted found that aspartame (i.e., equal or NutraSweet) increases rates of various cancers. And the legal limit for aspartame consumption in the United States and Europe is twice the amount given to the rodents.

5. Natural doesn’t necessarily mean healthy. Stevia is a sweetener that is marketed as being all natural and therefore healthier. Studies, however, have shown that it turns into a mutagen within the intestine.

At the end of the day, we still don’t know how safe artificial sweeteners are. My personal advice would be to not take the risk and eliminate them as much as possible from your diet. After all, getting thin arms doesn’t have to be unhealthy. In fact, it should increase your health. And remember: do not pay attention to all the marketing hype. Only pay attention to peer reviewed research.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under fat loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.