Artificial sweeteners…
The name, artificial, itself already perpetuates bad and unnatural sentiments, easily provoking
people to steer clear of such ingredients.
But the information that is available on artificial sweeteners isn’t all that clear, especially
with the fact that there is not just one artificial sweetener, but multiple sweeteners of varying
substances.
Let’s take a look at some of the more popular varieties and see what the fuss is all about.
We’ll start with the most popular: Aspartame.
Virtually all sweet-enhanced foods have a varying amount of aspartame.
First made in 1965, it didn’t take long for it to be approved by the FDA 9 years later.
By the turn of the century, though, things started to look … sour for aspartame due
to a 2005 research linking aspartame to cancer development in rodents.
The link was made to methanol, an aspartame constituent that metabolizes into the notorious
substance formaldehyde.
However, the amount of methanol in aspartame is extremely small.
In fact, one serving is a thousand times less than the amount our own body produces on a
daily basis.
Investigating further, we’ll see that the rats consumed amounts of aspartame equivalent
to 18 cans of diet soda per day.
On top of that, our body metabolizes aspartame very differently to rodents, making any comparison
between humans and rodents questionable.
Human trials typically show no issue.
At the most, aspartame can be a cause for concern for those with a genetic disorder
known as phenylketonuria, since aspartame contains phenylalanine.
For everyone else, barring some research linking aspartame to headaches, it seems that a modest
dose of aspartame is safe.
Moving on to another popular sweetener: sucralose.
Also used in plenty of drinks and sweets, sucralose is more popularly known as Splenda.
Extensive research shows that sucralose is generally safe, but some do show a potential
connection between sucralose and leukemia.
The issue here, though, again is the lack of evidence in human trials.
Our best understanding is that, since we absorb only 2 to 5 percent of sucralose consumed,
sucralose should be safe at modest dosages.
Acceptable dietary allowance for sucralose is five milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight,
averaging out to about 165 packets of Splenda per day.
Suffice to say, it shouldn’t be too hard to stay well below that.
But, one artificial sweetener that took a lot of beating recently is saccharin.
The concern emanated from a 2014 study titled “Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance
by altering the gut microbiota.”
Although the study looked at other artificial sweeteners, (aspartame and sucralose) the
predominant focus was saccharin.
Through 11-weeks, researchers found that saccharin modulated microbiota composition that impaired
glucose tolerance in mice.
Wondering if it also applies to humans, they conducted a 7-day experiment giving 7 subjects
the maximum acceptable daily intake of saccharin at 5 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight
per day.
After 7 days, 4 of the 7 subjects did experience microbial imbalances.
But, it also has to be noted that the researchers did not directly conclude that the saccharin-induced
dysbiosis did in fact lead to glucose intolerance in the human subjects.
Instead, they took stool samples from the humans, transplanted them into mice, and then
found that it did muck up glucose tolerance for the transplanted mice.
In any case, saccharin fortunately has been mostly replaced in foods by the more popular
sweeteners aspartame and sucralose.
Saccharin’s mainly accessible these days from sweetener packets such as Sweet N Low.
And to wrap up our list: acesulfame potassium, or commonly abbreviated as Ace-K.
Ace-K typically tags along with one of the other sweeteners as an additional sweet enhancer.
Unlike the others, though, Ace-K isn’t metabolized by our body whatsoever.
It might sound like a broken record, but the sparse evidence against Ace-K is again from
rodent research on the gut microbiome when mice were given exorbitant amounts of Ace-K.
Human trials, as you would guess, show very little issue with Ace-K consumption.
What I got out of reading through all of this commotion about artificial sweeteners, though,
is that… we don’t know for sure if they are completely safe.
In the grand scheme of things, they are nutrition-less ingredients that we don’t NEED to have in
our food.
Its initial intention was to help us lose weight by replacing sugar, but new research
shows that it’s not actually good at doing so.
The issue is that people still overeat.
And that’s where the answer really lies.
A diet soda here and there won’t ruin your goals, but don’t use it as an excuse to
let yourself eat more.
Ultimately, the tried and true remains: eat a healthy and balanced diet, count your calories
and macros, and make sure you don’t overeat.
Share your thoughts on artificial sweeteners below.
Is it better or worse than I’ve outlined in the video?
Come follow me on my other social media platforms, and as always, thank you for watching and
get your protein!