When reducing your sugar intake, focus on retraining yourself to want wholesome foods rather than turning to artificial sweeteners. The most popular of these today is Nutrasweet, a product containing aspartame and glutamate. These are excitatory amino acids (or excitotoxins) that can have negative effects on the central nervous system. While glutamate is a naturally occurring substance needed to help nerve cells transmit messages, ingesting extra amounts can result in an overstimulation of brain cells, which can alter brain chemistry. The popular seasoning monosodium glutamate, or MSG, also can cause this problem. It's easy enough to request no MSG at a Chinese restaurant but harder to eliminate it in grocery store purchases. Check your labels for such names as hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed protein, plant protein extract, texturized protein, yeast extract, or autolyzed yeast. These may be deceptive names for MSG.

Should dieters risk long-term artificial sweetener use? Apparently not, as research indicates no relationship to weight loss. In fact, despite the absence of calories, these chemicals can mess up metabolism so that you actually gain, instead of lose, weight.

*38\233\8*

› IMMUNE POWER DIET: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW CAN HURT YOU