For
as long as humans have lived on Earth, they have
been eating foods that taste sweet, such as sugar
cane and honey.
So,
the brain has a conditioned response in reaction
to eating something sweet.
It
is called the Cephalic Phase Insulin
Response (CPIR), and it’s
responsible for the fat-storing effects of diet
beverages, including diet sodas, diet tea, coffee,
energy drinks, sports drinks, and flavored waters.
This
adaptation in humans is a reaction to the ingestion
of sweet-tasting foods. The body learned to associate
sweet-taste on the tongue with the resulting sugar-energy-load
that landed in the stomach.
The
brain came to perceive sweet-taste with the need
to program the liver to prepare for the arrival
of an outside source of high energy – sugar.
As
the tongue senses something sweet, it programs
the brain to set into motion a series of biochemical
events. It doesn’t matter if the sweet taste
comes from natural honey or from artificial sweeteners.
This
biochemical cascade triggers the liver to stop
the manufacture of protein and starch from its
body-reserves, and to begin to store the glucose-energy
that circulates in the blood.
In
the case of diet beverages, the sweet taste sets
these events into motion.
But
when no calories actually appear in the stomach,
this causes the body to demand real food, with
resulting hyper-urges from the liver to overeat,
or to drink more of the sweet-tasting liquid,
and the cascade repeats itself.
Almost
instantly, the body starts producing insulin,
the “fat” hormone, which stores sugar
in the blood stream, and programs the adipose
tissue fat cells (belly fat) to store, store,
store.
This
Cephalic Phase Insulin Response (CPIR) creates
reactive hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which
further triggers strong cravings for more sweet-tasting
items, and high glycemic foods.
After
the taste buds are activated by a sweet-taste,
the urge to ingest food can last from 1 to 2 hours.
So, you are hungry for hours, because no real
food or calories has satiated the body’s
need for energy.
And
now, the body is producing insulin for no reason,
because the brain has instructed the liver to
store instead of burn/release its storage supplies.
The
result is fat, fat, fatter - the Cephalic Fat
Spiral
