Does insulin response to a sweet taste change if no sugar is forthcoming?

(Brian) #1

I’ve tried to ask this before, in other threads where it wasn’t exactly the subject. And it’s still something I’m wondering about.

Does insulin response to a sweet taste change if no sugar is forthcoming?

As a for instance, I put stevia in my tea. I never put anything but stevia in my tea. There is no sugar, ever. Time after time, it’s stevia, not sugar. Would my body continually be fooled, time after time after time, when I taste sweet and it gets stevia, not sugar?

When a person is waking down the street and someone flashes a paper tiger in front of them and scares the bejeebers out of 'em, there is going to be a huge adrenaline rush. That’s kinda the way it works. If it happens every day, same paper tiger, same non-event when said tiger doesn’t eat them, after a while, there is pretty much no adrenaline rush at all. The person adapts.

Question is, does that same kind of thing happen over time with stevia in my tea or other similar things that happen over and over?

It’s just something I wondered about. Probably didn’t put it into words as well as I wish I could but hopefully, you get the idea of what I’m wondering about.

Curious about your thoughts.

(Trish) #2

Good question and also interested to know. Keenly awaiting the well-read sciency types’ responses.

(Mike Glasbrener) #3

We’re all snow flakes. Each of us have individual responses. It is possible to have an insulin response without having a glucose response. So if you want to use artificial sweeteners recognize they could be counter productive. If you’re getting good results no change is needed. If not drop the artificial sweeteners and see if your results improve. I don’t use them at all. As such, I have no sweet tooth and no desire for any sweets. It’s just my choice though. YMMV.

#4

There aren’t even any good studies on one-off reactions to artificial sweeteners, much less helpful studies on reactions over a period of time (large studies exonerating sweeteners are usually paid for by the manufacturer, and studies condemning them were typically paid for by the sugar industry or other interested parties; unbiased studies typically are too small or have too many confounders to be definitive).

But this isn’t just a problem with sweeteners. It’s the Wild West out there.

(Brian) #5

Probably why no one has really said much. And I understand there are a lot of variables.

I’ve not really noted anything significant about artificial sweeteners personally but that says nothing of reactions in other people, probably almost doesn’t even apply.

Interesting to think about, anyway.

Thanks for the input!

(Mike Glasbrener) #6

To amplify your comment even more… The manufacturers of sweeteners don’t include metabolically damaged people (insulin resistant) people in their blood glucose studies. They could be different the “normal” people.

To my knowledge no manufactures include any insulin response studies since the medical community and the general populace don’t understand nor care about it. So for manufacturers gathering this data does not provide a marketing/contest I’ve advantage.