The Brain Health Kitchen Guide to a Healthy Metabolism
Plus, are artificial sweeteners really all that bad?
Hello, everyone. I am writing to you from San Diego where I have been spending time with my mom. Many of you have asked me how she is doing and I really appreciate that. As you may already know, she has been living with Alzheimer’s for the past 9 years. One of the latest developments is that she no longer remembers who I am. I know this sounds devastating, and believe me, I was dreading this. After all, no longer recognizing family members is common in later stages of Alzheimer’s. And yet, even though I knew this was coming it blindsided me. It’s a good lesson, for me, to remember that knowing something will happen isn’t the same as knowing how it will make me feel.
Even so, my mom and I really enjoyed each other’s company this week. We played some version of Scrabble by moving tiles around to spell the names of her children. We dabbled watercolors onto paper just for fun. And when she saw all the signatures I have collected in my book, she became determined to sign it too. I admired her focus as she practiced writing her name.
Today, we are wrapping up the discussion of the impact of metabolic health on your brain health with a discussion of artificial sweeteners. And, I’ve put together a downloadable guide of takeaways for keeping metabolic health top of mind. Find it at the end of this post.
There’s still time to enter to win a copy of The Menopause Brain by Lisa Mosconi, PhD. I’ll be accepting comments on this post until Wednesday, March 13 at 9 pm MST.
Non Nutritive Sweeteners
If you grew up drinking Diet Coke (or Fresca or Tab), you probably never thought twice about the safety of artificial sweeteners. Back then, soft drinks without sugar were the healthier choice. Artificial sweeteners are now more likely to be called non-nutritive sweeteners (NNSs) because they include both artificial (such as sucralose (Splenda), aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet’N Low)) and natural sources like stevia and monk fruit. NNSs produce an intense sweet taste at a very low concentration compared to sucrose (table sugar). They have low- or zero-calorie counts and have been marketed to help people lose weight or normalize blood sugar. But do they? And, could these ubiquitous food additives be actually harmful to metabolic health?