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
