Danger of Overeating

Binge Eating Disorder

Binge eating is very serious and has an impact on both physical and mental health. Left untreated, binge eating can lead to severe medical problems including high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and depression.

What is Binge Eating?

Binge eating can affect women or men, though it appears twice as often among women. People with binge eating disorder suffer from episodes of uncontrolled eating or bingeing followed by periods of guilt and depression. Binge eating is marked by the consumption of large amounts of food, sometimes accompanied by a pressured, "frenzied" feeling. Binge eating disorder may cause a person to continue to eat even after she or he becomes uncomfortably full.

Binge Eating Warning Signs

There are many warning signs which indicate that someone may be suffering from binge eating disorder. A person with binge eating disorder may exhibit one, all, or any combination of these warning signs. Becoming aware of these warning signs is the first step in helping someone suffering from binge eating.

Common binge eating warning signs:

• Eating large amounts of food when not physically hungry is a sign of binge eating.
  
• Eating much more rapidly than normal is a sign of binge eating.
  
• Eating until the point of feeling uncomfortably full is a sign of binge eating.
  
• A person with binge eating disorder may often eat alone because of shame or embarrassment.
  
• A person with binge eating disorder has feelings of depression, disgust, or guilt after eating.
  
• A person with binge eating disorder has a history of marked weight fluctuations.
  

How can you help someone with binge eating disorder?

You may know someone suffering from binge eating disorder. You may suspect that someone you know has binge eating disorder but are not certain. You may feel that you are beginning to exhibit some warning signs for binge eating. What should you do?
If you feel that you or someone you know may be suffering from binge eating disorder, it is important to seek professional counseling as quickly as possible. If untreated, binge eating will become part of a destructive cycle which can continue for years and cause significant health problems.

Artificial Sweeteners: what do we know about them?

Most of Americans eat the equivalent of 20 teaspoons of sugar a day. True, you're probably not sucking on sugar cubes throughout the day, but you are probably downing more than your fair share of sugary cereals, snacks, sodas, ice cream.. and the list goes on and on.
For the average person, there's nothing wrong with sugar per se, unless all the sweet foods in your daily diet are keeping you from eating and drinking the nutritious foods you need. But for people who are trying to lose weight, or have to watch their blood sugar because of diabetes, too much sugar can be a problem. That's where artificial sweeteners can come in handy. These low-calorie sweeteners, reports the International Food Information Council, are safe to use, provide sweetness without calories, and provide a choice of sweet foods.
A 1998 survey conducted by the Calorie Control Council reported that 144 million American adults routinely eat and drink low-calorie, sugar-free products such as desserts and artificially sweetened sodas. The FDA has approved five artificial sweeteners:

• Acesulfame potassium (Sunett)
  
• Aspartame (NutraSweet or Equal)
  
• Sucralose (Splenda)
  
• D-Tagatose (Sugaree)
  
• Saccharin (Sweet 'N Low)
  

You may be surprised to see saccharin on that list. Discovered in 1879, saccharin which is 300 times sweeter than sugar was used during World War I and World War II to make up for sugar shortages and rationing. In the 1970s, the FDA was going to ban saccharin based on the reports of a Canadian study that showed that saccharin was causing bladder cancer in rats. A public outcry kept saccharin on the shelves (there were no other sugar substitutes at that time), but with a warning label that read, "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."
That warning label is no longer needed. Further research has shown that male rats have a particular pH factor that predisposes them to bladder cancer. What may be true for male rats does not necessarily hold true for humans (or even for female rats); hence, no more warning labels for saccharin. A lot of things that cause harm in animals don't always cause harm in humans.
Like saccharin, aspartame is another sweetener that, though thoroughly tested by the FDA and deemed safe for the general population, has had its share of critics who blame the sweetener for causing everything from brain tumors to chronic fatigue syndrome. Not so much. The only people for whom aspartame is a medical problem are those with the genetic condition known as phenylkenoturia (PKU), a disorder of amino acid metabolism. Those with PKU need to keep the levels of phenylalanine in the blood low to prevent mental retardation as well as neurological, behavioral, and dermatological problems. Since phenylalanine is one of the two amino acids in aspartame, people who suffer from PKU are advised not to use it.

If you need to control your sugar and caloric intake, artificial sweeteners are a safe, effective way to do that.

Some people can be sensitive to sweeteners and experience symptoms such as headaches and upset stomach, but otherwise, there is no credible information that aspartame, or any other artificial sweetener causes brain tumors, or any other illness.

Another sweetener receiving much publicity of late is stevia, an herbal sweetening ingredient used in food and beverages by South American natives for many centuries and in Japan since the mid-1970s. Because stevia is not FDA-approved, it cannot be sold as an artificial sweetener; however, it can be and is sold as a dietary supplement.

Though there are any number of people quick to point out what they believe are the dangers of artificial sweeteners, others think that they may actually have beneficial properties apart from reducing calorie intake and managing diabetes. Researchers at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, for example, have found in several preliminary studies that aspartame is "especially effective in relieving pain associated with osteoarthritis, multiple sclerosis, and sickle cell anemia."

If you don't need to watch your calories or your blood sugar, there is no real reason to use the sweeteners unless you just happen to like the taste. But if you need to control your sugar and caloric intake, artificial sweeteners are a safe, effective way to do that.