Artificial sweeteners - good or bad?

Forget almost everything you know about artificial sweeteners and weight gain...

Run a search on the Internet for "artificial sweeteners", and you’ll find plenty of claims that these products are responsible for everything from cancer and headaches to the impending destruction of the human race.

The popularity of low-carbohydrate diets has increased demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar foods. Check the shelves of your local supermarket, and you’ll find ice cream with no sugar added, sugar-free syrup, low-sugar cookies, diet soda and many other treats. However, many people are worried that their diet soda is giving them headaches, multiple sclerosis or increasing their risk of certain forms of cancer.

There are also reports that artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame (also known as NutraSweetT) or acesulfame-K will stimulate your appetite, leading to a gain in weight. Because they're widely used in many soft drinks, such as Coca-Cola or Sprite, many people are worried that artificially-sweetened soft drinks will lead to weight gain...

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Set point to blame for weight loss plateau

by Tanya Zilberter, PhD

What is the body weight set point? Of course you do know what the set point means, just think of your refrigerator: it's the point you set to maintain the inside temperature you want.

To maintain the temperature you want, your refrigerator needs a few simple hardware gadgets.

1. a thermometer to measure the actual temperature in the refrigerator;
2. some wire to send the reading to the thermostat;
3. a motor to produce more cool air (if needed);
4. a controlling device that reads temperature information and compares it with the temperature you wanted.

If the actual temperature is not what you meant, one of two commands go to the motor: make more cool air or to stop doing it. There can always be outside disturbances in the system - you kid forgot to shut the refrigerator's door, or you switched on your AC- but the thermostat is designed to counteract them.

Though different in details, absolutely same parts make up the human body's thermostat.

As technical systems can control not only temperature but, say, humidity as well, human body's can control any parameter including blood sugar level, body fat, blood pressure and the like.
What is the body-weight set point?

Body-weight set point is Nature's idea of what amount of fat you need. The human body's "thermostat" for body fat does have same principal elements:

1. a "thermometer" for body fat ("lipometer") to measure the actual fat content in the body;

2. some "wire" ("chemosensory pathways", including those sensing Leptin) to send the reading to the "thermostat" ("Lipostat");

3. an "engine" to produce more fat (if needed);

4. a controlling device that reads fat information and compares it with the set fat Nature wanted.

If the fat reading is incorrect one of two commands go to the "engine": eat more or to stop eating.

As with your refrigerator, there can always be outside disturbances in the system but the system is designed to counteract them. We expend calories physical work, for body heat, to rebuild the body's tissues after damages or to renew them on regular basis, like skin tissue or mucous membranes do. It takes a lot of energy to produce immune bodies or blood cells, etc. A lot of energy goes into our fat deposits as energy reserves. To stay healthy, we need to maintain a certain, quite precise, percentage of body-weight as a fat deposit.

The only way to get calories is to eat. That is simple -- Thou shalt not overeat. Then where do our problems with weight come from? Researchers are making tremendous efforts to answer these questions. Is the system able to automatically regulate itself? What happens when one is allowed to eat as much as he or she is pleases? It depends.

Do we need to control our breathing?

To Breathe or not to Breathe?
by Tanya Zilberter, PhD

"...look, everybody breathes in pure oxygen, but tries to breath out all kinds of filth!"

A. Raikin

Necessary as air means most necessary. Our breathing process is unique in many ways. Everyone knows how long a man can live without food, water and air. Without air -- almost no time. A few minutes, and brain cortex dies. Also unique is the availability of air: so far no one came up with a way to sell it. Finally, unique is the process's character which is almost automatic. Almost. That's the topic for today.

A man is sitting in a closed room and is doing something. The window is closed, the air conditioner is off. Oxygen is consumed, carbon dioxide is exhaled, thus increasing the CO2 concentration in the room. What happens?

None can say for sure! In a short period of time a number of following might change:

• Breathing depth
• Breathing frequency
• Heart's contraction strength
• Pulse
• Blood flow velocity
• Blood vessel resistance
• Oxygen availability to tissues (how easily it is transferred from hemoglobin into tissues)

In a longer period of time, something else will change:

• Lungs' vital capacity (how much air is taken in for the deepest breath)
• Amount of hemoglobin
• Amount of erythrocytes (red blood cells carrying oxygen)
• Eritropeses (production of erythrocytes in bone marrow)

Your breathing function is affected by the combination of all these parameters which in turn are related to each other, how -- it's impossible to predict. Moreover, each time, random combination might "fall out." So when something changes in the oxygen availability to tissues or you change your breathing, your body brilliantly evades to compensate for those changes.

So do we need to control our breathing?

Seems that a healthy animal or a child has no need to. Some breathing techniques manuals instruct to uncover a baby and see how rhythmically it's stomach rises and falls. The chest barely moves. That type of breathing is called diaphragmal, because the diaphragm, a muscle between the chest and stomach is the one that makes the lungs expand and contract. That type of breathing is meant for quiet body state.

When an awakened baby cries, it is visible that the chest starts working to take in as much air as possible. It is an emergency breathing. It is meant for stress and hard physical efforts. In rest, the body functions' control is overrun by parasympathetic autonomous nervous system. In emergency cases -- it is taken over by a competitive nervous system, the sympathetic one. It increases body's work in order to escape a predator, chase a prey, or endure fear or rage. For example, the heart rate is increased, blood vessels contract to avoid losing too much blood in case of a wound, and so on. Functions that are not immediately needed, like intestinal movement, are slowed down.

Several US universities have developed the test predicting the development of premature babies. If the control of parasympathetic system is dominating, the prognosis is definitely better: the possibility of cerebral palsy, mental retardation and other typical pathologies of premature babies, is much less. Domination of the sympathetic nervous system, in babies as well as in adults, on the other hand provides for not so good a prediction. Of course, the body is more comfortable under the parasympathetic control, and the latter is dominant until something out of the ordinary happens.

Nevertheless, like in many other cases, we are deviating from the natural order of things. In this case, it is an abuse of the sympathetic system's services. Hence are the tendencies to high blood pressure, increased pulse, etc. Hence is the emergency type of breathing when it is not needed.

Try breathing as deep and as fast as you can. Soon, you will get dizzy and might even get a headache. Asthma victims might get an asthma attack. People with heart problems might get an anginaattack. It looks as though our body's in trouble and the weakest points fail first, which is natural.

There is a disease, panic attacks, a major symptom of which is a strong, uncontrollable fear and frantic hysterical breathing. Do you know how that panic attack is fought? It's hard to believe, but the victim is made to breathe into a paper bag (brown paper bag #4). What happens was recorded by placing a gas sensor inside the bag. After it is breathed in for a short time, the concentration of carbon dioxide inside increases. Then the attack stops. Turns out, not only the lack of oxygen but also the lack of carbon dioxide is harmful to the body. In the "Medline" there are many hundreds of clinical and experimental evidences on the harm of lack of carbon dioxide (hypocapnia), along with good effects of moderate hypercapnia.