Sweet Love

By Dr. Madeline

As a young girl I lived in the tropical country of Singapore. More than  forty years later, I can still remember one hot day when my friend’s mom, Mrs. Kim, climbed a mango tree for us and opened up the ripe, juicy fruit. Sweet heaven. The ancestral hunter-gatherer likely gorged themselves when a bush or tree was discovered laden with its annual sweet fruit. Sugar yields cellular energy, allows us to store excess for lean winter months, and is satisfying in a primal, pleasurable way.  

There are few humans who don’t love the taste of “sweet,” but most people don’t consume their sugar from natural sources and instead grab a donut, a cookie, chips, or a soft drink.  Processed sugar can be hidden within many foods such as pasta sauce, crackers, pickles, breads, and even meat and meat alternatives. Today, the majority of people consume processed sugar at every meal. This is not sustainable for maintaining human health and vitality. We were not meant to eat sugar at all meals, let alone every single day. 

Back in the 1970’s there was a group of people (probably some founding members of The Honest Weight Food Co-op) who understood that constant sugar was not sustainable for the health of a human body. While our food co-op encouraged a lifestyle of traditional farming and whole-food eating, many communities were not as blessed with such an awesome organization.  Instead, with the emergence of food engineering, coupled with the great marketing of the 20th century, the age of artificial sweeteners was launched and various colorful packets were found on dinner tables and these sugar “alternatives” became ingredients in all sorts of processed foods. Consumers were encouraged to decrease sugar consumption by eating processed foods containing artificial sweeteners; these promised the same great taste without the “harm” (sugar overconsumption outcomes such as obesity, type II diabetes, lipid problems, and coronary heart disease). 

But are artificial sweeteners less harmful than sugar? To answer this question, there are many molecular avenues we could talk about. In this article, I focus on three key hormones that are affected by relentless sugar and/or artificial sweetener consumption: ghrelin, insulin, and leptin. These hormones work together to cause one to feel hungry, allow consumed food to arrive at the proper place, and signal one to stop eating.

Ghrelin is the “I’m hungry” hormone. Think of the grrrr sound your stomach makes when you are hungry. Ghrelin gets us to eat so that we feed our cells. When we consume sugar or any carbohydrates, the human body breaks them down into the sugar molecule glucose. Glucose is released into the blood, but cannot initially enter most body cells because there is an outer cellular lock, a receptor through which glucose must enter to get into the cell. Insulin is a hormone that acts as a “key” that opens up the cellular receptor. Once the glucose is inside cells, it can be used to produce energy. Now, cells are satiated and the hormone leptin comes into action. Leptin is the “I’m full” hormone. It is produced by fat cells, turns off the production of ghrelin, and tells the brain that one is full and to stop eating. 

So, how can eating too much sugar and/or artificial sweeteners disrupt this hormonal set of signals? Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas in response to a sweet taste sensed on the tongue, whether from sugar or an artificial sweetener.  Before one even swallows, taste receptors send a message to the brain, which sends a message to the pancreas that something sweet is being consumed. The pancreas responds and releases insulin into the blood. Besides acting as a “key” to let glucose into cells, insulin has many other hormonal roles. One of those is to enhance fat storage. 

Fats, or lipids, often get a bad rap, but they are an important component of anatomical integrity and physiological function in a human body. Fats play essential roles such as creating cellular boundaries, acting as hormones, providing insulation, acting as fuel for cells, and protecting vital organs, to name a few. 

Depending on genetics and lifestyle, we store fat in three possible ways. The most commonly thought of fat is called adipose tissue, which accumulates under the skin. Although someone with a lot of adipose tissue may be at risk for various ailments, it is not always the case. We can not judge the health of others by their adipose tissue. There is a medical term called Metabolically Healthy Obese (MHO) which describes someone who deposits excess adipose, yet is as healthy as can be.

The second way one might store fat is as visceral fat. This is when the fat is confined to the belly region.  Finally, the most dangerous form of fat storage is actually invisible to the eye. The medical term for it is TOFI-Thin-On-the-Outside-Fat on-the-Inside. This person may appear thin; however, usually due to consumption of processed foods containing various engineered forms of sugar (like high-fructose corn syrup), their liver cells (called hepatocytes) become packed with fat. This renders the vital liver cells useless. The condition is called Non-Alchoholic-Fatty-Liver-Disease (NAFLD). Each form of fat storage is not exclusive; a person might have one or all three. 

Decreasing excess fat from any of the three storage areas listed above is nearly impossible when consuming sugar. When we consume sugar insulin is released; this puts us in fat storage mode, not fat burning mode. To compound the difficulty, sugar is pervasive in our processed food supply and often hidden. Avoiding it takes knowledge, dedication, and perseverance. 

Although a “diet” label option may have market appeal, it usually means an artificial sweetener is substituting for sugar. Artificial sweeteners create a different problem when it comes to hormonal balance and weight loss: they do not provide cellular fuel. Yet  body cells will expect glucose due to the sweet taste hitting the tongue. Insulin is released, but the body cells will still be hungry because no fuel was consumed. The person is left hungry, causing them to eat more. Artificial sweeteners thus initiate the insulin-induced process of body fat storage and because body cells were not fed fuel, ghrelin reigns and one is still hungry. But wait, there is another problem that occurs with long-term use of artificial sweeteners. 

Have you ever heard the idea, “if you don’t use it, you lose it?” Imagine a body that senses sweet on the tongue from an artificial sweetener, releases insulin into the blood to prepare, but then finds no glucose? One theory suggests that if cells’ insulin receptors go long enough without being used to take in sugar, they stop being made by the cells. The doorway for glucose into the cells disappears. This is called insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance can develop from a lifestyle that includes overconsumption of sugar and is expedited by the use of artificial sweeteners. While there are many other theories as to why insulin resistance occurs, the bottom line is that cells lose insulin receptors and can no longer take up glucose.  

 When one has a blood test that reveals high blood glucose due to the body losing insulin receptors, the diagnosis may be pre-diabetes, gestational diabetes, or type II diabetes. In these conditions, even if real sugar is consumed and insulin is secreted, the cells still can’t get the glucose because there is no receptor for the insulin to dock on to open up cells. This causes high blood glucose levels, a dangerous situation that the body will remedy by sending glucose to fat cells for storage. Why is this possible? Fat cells don’t need an insulin receptor to take in glucose. 

For the record, muscle cells also don’t need an insulin receptor to take in glucose. This is why exercise can help decrease blood glucose. When muscles are used they require more glucose and derive it from the blood, thus bringing blood glucose levels down. Even going for a gentle walk after a meal can decrease blood glucose.

So what happens to our other two hormones when there is insulin resistance? Unfortunately, this leads to leptin resistance as well, meaning there is a loss of the cellular receptors for leptin. Now the brain can’t receive the signal to feel full. Insulin and leptin resistance often mean that the person is always hungry. This can lead to a host of metabolic dysfunctions and chronic disease. 

What is one supposed to do? For one, stop eating synthetic artificial sweeteners. I have not even delved into the other negative aspects of these chemicals, but suffice it to say that many have been shown to be carcinogenic. 

Can insulin and leptin resistance be reversed? In other words, can body cells start making insulin and leptin receptors again?  In most cases, the answer is yes.  However, it takes a turnaround in lifestyle choices. These include decreasing consumption of processed sugar and other carbohydrates, seeking organic, whole fresh vegetables and fruits, eating healthy fats from meat, dairy, and olive oil, and eating fermented foods to rebuild a healthy gut. 

While you may not have Mrs. Kim to climb a mango tree for you, The Honest Weight Food Co-op is the place to go to find whole, organic, and locally grown fresh foods that will help to support ghrelin, insulin, and leptin and promote hormonal balance.

The Mad Health Doc has a Ph.D. in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. She works at a local college where she teaches in the biology department. Check out her writing in The Coop Scoop or the Coop Blog. Have a question or a suggestion for a future topic? MadHealthDoc@gmail.com She is not on social media so you can’t find her, follow her or subscribe to her channel. Instead, she hopes that you take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, smile and go outside. 

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