Monday, January 14, 2008

The Sorbitol Diet

On Friday, news spread about an article published in the past week’s “British Medical Journal” on sorbitol, the artificial sweetener. Sorbitol is the latest and greatest artificial sweetener found in gum, most notably Orbit and Eclipse. Apparently there have been two cases of excessive weight loss (following chronic diarrhea and abdominal pain, natch) in sugar-free gum chain-chewers.

A 21-year-old woman chewed a mere fifteen to eighteen sticks of the stuff a day before noticing its effects. The other, a 46-year-old man, was chewing 20 sticks a day. Their doctors found that as soon as they had stopped chewing the sorbitol-infested gum, symptoms subsided and normal weight was achieved.

Not to endorse or provoke it or anything, but anyone else think this is going to be the new underground diet fad? À la Mary-Kate Olsen’s supposed Starbucks (but really cocaine) diet?

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