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Stevia vs Sugar

3K views 13 replies 7 participants last post by  smorgan 
#1 ·
Last question, think I discovered my nerve issue. I try to avoid sugar, much as possible. But, what's crazy is, my body reacts to Stevia but not soda sugar. If I drink a regular soda, I'm fine. But, if I drink fluids with Stevia, or diet rite soda, I get the shakies :surprise: Artificual sweetners overstimulate my nervous system, but soda sugar does not. Any idea why?

We always try to do what's best for our bodies, with the worst outcomes :sad2:
 
#2 ·
I don't know any thing about stevia so this is more of a general statement on my experience with artificial sweeteners. It had a very negative impact on my health back in the 20's and 30s so by the time I hit my 40s I stopped taking artificial sweetener altogether. I haven't had any artificial sweeteners now for 16 years - for me personally sweeteners are just not a healthy option.
 
#5 ·
Just FYI: I don't know what sweeteners you were using, but stevia is NOT an "artificial sweetener". It is a completely natural product, a simple water extract from a green leaf and is no more "artificial" than sugar or green tea. There is NO grounds for comparison between this natural extract and those chemicals cooked up in labs - that DON'T exist anywhere in nature - called "artificial sweeteners". There is no chemical or biological reason at all for them even to be imagined as being in one "group" of compounds. (Sorry, perception of them as "sweet" doesn't qualify and is not relevant in this context.)
 
#3 ·
Just an idea, but what if the shakies is a symptom of hypoglycemia combined with a caffeine boost?

I have a close friend that experienced a hypoglycemic event while 3months into a ketogenic diet. One moment, she was doing fine, she had a tea with stevia, and the next moment she's eating crackers and calling the ambulance.

It is worth mentioning that most people wont experience this, but it is a possibility to consider whenever you are getting the shakies.

Another possibility is the type of stevia that you are ingesting. If it is a powder, the manufacturer is probably combining it with other ingredients. I once heard that the stevia in liquid form avoids about 20 processes and it is blessed with less chemicals and additives.

YMMV

best of wishes to you
 
#4 ·
I would bet a lot of money on it being purely psychological. In order to eliminate that possibility, get a couple of friends to set up a placebo-controlled DOUBLE-BLIND test. It's easier than it sounds and will answer your question once and for all. NOTHING short of that will.

How you react to something when you KNOW that you have ingested it is fraught with problems to the point - in many cases - of being useless or worse: diametrically opposed to what is real.

I wish you would test this correctly and get back to us. We owe science that much.

To be clear: test ingesting the two substances via numbered samples where you cannot tell which one it is by taste or any other means. That may require using capsules instead of ingesting it in the normal way.

Neither you nor the one administering the test can know which is which. After you've gathered the data, then which samples were which can be revealed and you will have an clean and unambiguous answer of the effect each has on you.
 
#10 ·
#12 ·
I've been using Stevia since I head an NPR story about it well over a decade ago. At the time there was a kind of push-back from the sugar lobbies and chemical sweetener manufacturers. You could by a Stevia plant, (I did) and there was a veiled suggestion that it was grown by the same people who grew the then illegal other plant. Obviously, the market for weight-loss was too big to keep it down.

That said, I learned that Stevia sweetness works for some things and not others -- for me that it. I like it in tea, but hate it in coffee. Others don't.
I am convinced that it is a valid and healthy sugar substitute for some things. Also, the liquid seems to be the purest of all.
 
#14 ·
I now PREFER it to sugar or any other sweetener, not that sugar is an option. Then again, I don't use it to make things "sweet", just palatable. My Cappuccino or Bulletproof or plain yogurt is just MUCH more pleasant with a little stevia. I don't really like any of those things without. The science on stevia is that it is definitely harmless to diabetics, obviously MUCH better for us than sugar or honey and quite possibly of actual BENEFIT for diabetics. I haven't found ANY reason to drink bitter coffee, sour yogurt, etc. Not in need of "mortifying" my flesh by forgoing "sweetness"!

One thing I AM suspicious of, however, is that the FDA only approved a chemical isolate from stevia as a "sweetener" (obviously the HUGE market here) and declined to approve the natural, complete and direct water extract of the leaf as anything other than a "supplement". Pretty weird that something with zero nutrition or metabolic effect of any kind can be sold as a "nutritional supplement".

More likely, they did this so the darling corporations can make the big bucks on pseudo-stevia products. They can patent their particular chemistry and fillers, whereas boiling the leaves, filtering and then evaporating the water can be done by anyone and can't be patented. Actually, for teas, just putting dried stevia leaves in the cup along with the herbal or black tea is delicious and works just fine.

The natural leaf extract tends to be a greenish liquid and has some other shades of taste that some might not like. In fact, I had it years ago (when sugar and honey were still my sweeteners) and didn't care for it much.

I've just ordered a REAL stevia extract product. I would like to adopt that as my go-to sweetener. I read that the level of micro-filtration before evaporation can have a big effect on the final product.
 
#13 ·
As unlikely as that is, I'm not saying its impossible. Want to know? (BTW, you DON'T know from your experience so far!)

Do a DOUBLE BLIND. It's easy and doesn't cost anything (assuming you have two friends to help). You say your reaction to stevia is "crazy" (and there's a good chance it is). It is certainly not validated by any real science. So, TAKE THE CHALLENGE. If there's something unique about you, PROVE IT. We need that data for the sake of completeness. It could be a rare allergy or something. It's definitely not metabolic, since stevia is metabolically inert.
 
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