And there are likely to be other things that you can do to mitigate your risk with much larger effects. In my case almost certainly coming down from 135kg (only my height saves me - just - from morbid obesity) and cutting the ethanol consumption.**
**: 10kg off and counting, now below 125 
Pity I still have 35kg to go 
My list puts controlling weight below:
Not smoking (I stopped 20 years ago)
Moving as much as possible - and now I’m older trying to add in strength/muscle work
Eating well (mainly plants, and no crap)
So right now priority is strength rather than the pesky 5kgs that I seem to have acquired during the canicules from less exercise.
But failing all those you could just try to grow more to over 7ft?
I’m not sure walking on stilts counts. Besides even if I were 7’ tall 135kg is still overweight.
Good for you Billy.
Xylitol artificial? I thought that, originally at least, it was made from the sap from Finnish beech trees.
Being an IBS sufferer, one of the many things I was told to cut out of my diet were artificial sweeteners. Better to reduce your sugar intake than replace it with chemicals!
It may have started off as tree bark but it goes through a whole lot of processing to extract the sugars but thats still not really the point, despite most of it no longer coming from birch bark but synthesised in a lab its still artificial. Its added as an emulsifier and sweetner that if you have your bodies original natural sweetness levels isnt required. Due to the constant consumption of sugar sweetened stuff the body adapts and alters the levels of reception so what some find nice and sweet to me for example I would find insipid. It may only play a small part in destroying peoples health over many years but its only tested on its own, not in combination with other unnatural additives also on their own only a little bit of damage then add a few more only doing a little damage (long list of additives on fake food packaging) all just doing a little dammage over a long period of time. One issue I have with the control trials is their brevity, some are just 12 weeks, others maybe a year or more because they are costly but when you consider people eating is never the portion size mentioned on the packet, multiple time a week in some cases and over 30-40 years then you end up with a thread posting about all the medicines people are taking.
Just to add, its concern over the number of meds people are taking not a criticism. 
If it is exactly the same molecule then is it really artificial?
take your point but I meant in the context of not part of the original food stuff. Also with synthesis the developers are often only focussing on one aspect not as the original natural makeup would have been.
I thought I was home free, but I have acquired a chewing gum habit and it appears to have glycerol and several other -OLs (but no xylitol) - and several -AMEs and bizarrely the Polish jarred salad I eat a lot of has sacchar-IN !
I won’t be losing any sleep over it just yet …
Well, anything that’s not raw is processed. Cooking is a process which changes the original. Sugar is by your definition an artificial sweetener. Xylitol is mostly made from maize, because it’s cheaper. I only buy it extracted from Finnish beech.
I assume no difference was made in the study. Maybe the maize stuff is worse? Certainly corn sugar is considered particularly bad.
As mentioned, the most important question is whether it is a lesser evil than sugar, assuming someone wants or needs a sweetener. I believe Xylitol actually protects your teeth against caries, so there’s that to consider too.
As regards ultra processed food, or fake food as you call it 
, my question is, is it the processing itself or just the chemical additives that are bad?
It could be either or both, the shear amount of fake foods and UPf is staggering, especially for someone like me who wants to avoid most of it. I find its the meat counter, the veg counter, cheese and dairy and not much else in a supermarket. I have minimal amounts of anything else. My wife bought a no added sugar granola, had a bowl this morning, wont be having another, its a dessert for breakfast.
Granola isn’t too hard to make, although I’ve always made it with maple syrup and honey. I suppose sugar free is an option?
I used to make my own granola. 500g at a time would keep ok and easy to do.
(No longer have it as swapped to yoghurt for breakfast)
Likewise, I tried the granola as it’s best to show willing when wife’s made a purchase but it was awful.