Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagel and you're listening to the nutrition

divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous. Today I'm going

to weigh in on the artificial sweetener study that's been

getting so much press lately and that many of you have asked me to comment on and I'm

happy to do that.

People who use artificial sweeteners are more likely to be overweight.

Of course that doesn't prove that zero calorie sweeteners cause you to gain weight.

It's just as likely, actually it's more likely,

that people who are overweight are more likely to choose diet soda and other artificially

sweetened foods in an effort to cut calories.

Nonetheless, there's been this lingering suspicion that even though using artificial

sweeteners instead of sugar can save you some calories, they might somehow trick your body into gaining weight anyway.

One theory was that the body might respond to the sweet taste of them by releasing fat

storage hormones.

However, studies failed to confirm this hypothesis.

Now, a new study suggests a tantalizing new explanation.

Although they don't directly raise your blood sugar,

artificial sweeteners may affect how your body responds to the sugars in other foods,

leading to elevated blood sugar, and possibly insulin resistance, weight gain gain or even type 2 diabetes and the key to all

of this turns out to be in the millions of microbes that populate your gut. The first key piece of evidence was that people who are overweight

tend to have different intestinal flora than normal weight individuals. And furthermore,

it appears that these microbes actually play a big role in promoting obesity.

...