Artifical Sweeteners - effects on pancreas

[galain]

Just a question for someone more knowledgeable than myself. I was told recently that even though you get no sugar and very few calories from artificial sweeteners, they still stimulate the pancreas to dump insulin. Is this correct? My training partner told me that the pancreas responds to sweetness, not necessarily sugar, so anything that mimics the sweetness of sugar will have exactly the same effect.

If anyone can answer this for me, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[MS]

There is no scientific basis for that belief as far as I am aware. Some people on ketogenic diets claim that aspartame causes them to stop excreting ketones, but it is not clear if this is related to insulin increases or other factors such as diuresis. But ketogenic dieters are not really in a 'normal' (compared to non-ketogenic dieters) hormonal state so it's hard to draw any conclusions.