My understanding is that the perception of sweetness is the trigger for releasing insulin. That causes a "spike" in that your blood now has more than steady-state levels of it. Sugar and natural sweeteners do this too, but in those cases the insulin has something useful to do.

Depends on the carbs. Complex ones take time to metabolize into the simple ones that insulin deals with, so there's a period where, again, it doesn't have much good to do.

Hi. I would like to see your source. Insulin is released in the blood in order to lower the blood glucose level (it triggers the absorption of glucose by cells) so you can expect higher insulin level into your blood shortly after eating pure glucose or later after eating complex carb (like starch).

BUT : insulin released is ONLY trigger by glucose level in blood. To summarize, you have roughly 1 gramme of glucose by liter of blood. go upper (after a meal) and insulin is released to store additionnal glucose by the cells. go lower (before first day lunch or during exercise) and glucagon (the "anti" insulin hormone) will take glucose stored in cell and frees it into blood.

NONE sweetener have the ability to match with the receptor releasing insulin as they have no structural similarities with glucose.

I think what they're trying to say is zero calorie sweeteners can lead to weight gain. Artificial sweeteners have been used in the agriculture industry for quite some time as food additives to increase the weight of livestock.

Quoted from an animal feed ingredients producer and linked to their info: "The ultimate purpose of using sweeteners is to promote the animal’s continuous hunger, thereby increasing the total feed intake and improving the performance of animal production."

Artificial sweeteners themselves are usually zero calorie and don't directly add weight. Instead they cause a higher insulin release when you do eat something later. This can cause you to consume more simple carbs and more calories overall in order to feel satisfied.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27956737/

Edited to add sources and point out that we add zero calorie sweeteners to animal feed because the research is solid and we know the animals will gain more weight on them. There are no conflicts of interest. We want the animals to gain weight and the research supports using the sweeteners to accomplish that.

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The problem is that such thinking comes from theory and theory always has to make way for reality.

2020 a study was published that showed that in type 2 diabetics the ones who reported to using sweetener all had a higher fasting glucose : insulin ratio.

Now if you check the data then most of the type 2 diabetic people without artificial sugar cosumption had a ratio of below 4.5 (which is the cutoff for insulin resistance [weird data for diabetics but maybe their meds are working]) and all below 10.
While the other group hmwas generally higher and many above 10.
So either that data is super convincing or faked, for the sugar lobby this wouldn't be the first time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014832/

Besides the glucose dependent insulin response of the pancreas there are other Pathways too. Many hormones modulate the response.

Bottom line is I guess if you take normal people who consume lots of fake sugar and check their insulin resistance they will show no signs of it. Maybe ask your doc at the next check up to do insulin too and check the ratio. Or check your hunger levels and see how you respond.

Anyways I consumed tons of it and sugar doesn't taste good anymore so I take that as a triple win. If I had a slightly worse (not near pathological) level of insulin resistance in that time then I was totally right not caring about fake sugar consumption.

Also insulin is misunderstood. People look at t1 diabetics and what happens of they use too much insulin to make conclusions about that hormone, this of course is the wrong approach. If you eat and insulin puts glucose into your cells you will be satiated. Usually this correlates with the amount of insulin.

The hunger problem after an insulin spike comes from the sugar (sugar like sugar not blood glucose) blocking leptin signaling in the brain.

thanks for your comment. I took a look on the study you quote but only AFTER answering here.

I have in mind (and no evidence or precise mechanism) sweetener may cheat the brain (hypothalamus ?) while eating, leading to a release of glucose in blood. that will lead to insulin spike but indirectly induced by sweetener itself.

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> > > > > BUT : insulin released is ONLY trigger by glucose level in blood.

That is not true. Other nutrients affect insulin release too, and there are also control systems affecting the beta cells. So the brain experiencing tasting something sweet could absolutely affect insulin release.

It's true that glucose levels are the most direct factor controlling insulin release, but it's not the only thing involved.

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I have no source. Someone just said that to me and I wanted to understand it better.

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