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Is Sucralose Scary?
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System
Posts: 1,900 MFP Staff
Hi all,
This discussion was created from replies split from: Why Aspartame Isn't Scary to facilitate the discussion of the safety of sucralose.
As always, please remember to refrain from attacking during your debate.
Thanks,
4legs
This discussion was created from replies split from: Why Aspartame Isn't Scary to facilitate the discussion of the safety of sucralose.
As always, please remember to refrain from attacking during your debate.
Thanks,
4legs
0
Replies
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Is it time for another deep dive topic into a different non-sugar sweetner - sucralose?
2 -
Is it time for another deep dive topic into a different non-sugar sweetner - sucralose?
It sounds like research is continuing on non-sugar sweeteners and how they may lead to Type 2 diabetes and other common causes of premature death.
https://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321244.php
Findings 'should be of concern'
Study co-author Sabyasachi Sen, who is an associate professor of medicine at George Washington University, describes the results.
"Our stem cell-based studies indicate that low-calorie sweeteners promote additional fat accumulation within cells compared with cells not exposed to these substances, in a dose-dependent fashion — meaning that as the dose of sucralose is increased more cells showed increased fat droplet accumulation."
"This most likely occurs by increasing glucose entry into cells through increased activity of genes called glucose transporters."
Prof. Sen explains that these findings should be of particular concern to people who are obese and have prediabetes or diabetes, as these people are already at increased risk for heart attack and strokes.
The scientists believe that the overexpression in fat-related genes is more pronounced in these people because they have increased amounts of glucose in their blood, which creates insulin resistance.23 -
Is it time for another deep dive topic into a different non-sugar sweetner - sucralose?
I'm not as familiar with the sucralose literature so I wouldn't feel prepared to comment really. I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that suggests it poses any health risks but to me at least it isn't as blatantly obvious that it isn't dangerous.
What I mean by that is looking at aspartame I see what it is comprised of, I see that it would be digested into those units and I see that those units are found in tons of common whole foods in greater abundance. At that point its pretty clear it isn't a problem, or at least it should be. I felt like that was a simple enough concept it would be worth conveying to the public via this forum.
Sucralose, if memory serves, is a chloro-substituted sucrose molecule where some of the hydroxyls are substituted for chlorine atoms. That is a non-trivial change and I doubt it would be digested into sucrose, I think it would remain chloronated. Now I think as a result it isn't digested so it is low or no cal because it literally passes right through you. At that point I think the bar is pretty high to show a reason why it would be harmful if it never actually enters your body. I'm guessing people who make claims that it might be harmful probably do a lot of hand-waving with regards to our microbiome as that would be exposed to sucralose given it is in our GI tract. I don't know though, I'm not that well read on it.9 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »Is it time for another deep dive topic into a different non-sugar sweetner - sucralose?
It sounds like research is continuing on non-sugar sweeteners and how they may lead to Type 2 diabetes and other common causes of premature death.
https://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321244.php
Findings 'should be of concern'
Study co-author Sabyasachi Sen, who is an associate professor of medicine at George Washington University, describes the results.
"Our stem cell-based studies indicate that low-calorie sweeteners promote additional fat accumulation within cells compared with cells not exposed to these substances, in a dose-dependent fashion — meaning that as the dose of sucralose is increased more cells showed increased fat droplet accumulation."
"This most likely occurs by increasing glucose entry into cells through increased activity of genes called glucose transporters."
Prof. Sen explains that these findings should be of particular concern to people who are obese and have prediabetes or diabetes, as these people are already at increased risk for heart attack and strokes.
The scientists believe that the overexpression in fat-related genes is more pronounced in these people because they have increased amounts of glucose in their blood, which creates insulin resistance.
Gale, take a look at the the actual study and tell me if it was in vivo or in vitro. If you don't know what those terms mean you can look those up as well.7 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »Is it time for another deep dive topic into a different non-sugar sweetner - sucralose?
It sounds like research is continuing on non-sugar sweeteners and how they may lead to Type 2 diabetes and other common causes of premature death.
https://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321244.php
Findings 'should be of concern'
Study co-author Sabyasachi Sen, who is an associate professor of medicine at George Washington University, describes the results.
"Our stem cell-based studies indicate that low-calorie sweeteners promote additional fat accumulation within cells compared with cells not exposed to these substances, in a dose-dependent fashion — meaning that as the dose of sucralose is increased more cells showed increased fat droplet accumulation."
"This most likely occurs by increasing glucose entry into cells through increased activity of genes called glucose transporters."
Prof. Sen explains that these findings should be of particular concern to people who are obese and have prediabetes or diabetes, as these people are already at increased risk for heart attack and strokes.
The scientists believe that the overexpression in fat-related genes is more pronounced in these people because they have increased amounts of glucose in their blood, which creates insulin resistance.
That's not a study and therefore hasn't been published or peer reviewed. It's just preliminary research.3 -
Is it time for another deep dive topic into a different non-sugar sweetner - sucralose?
From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3982014/Sucralose
Sucralose (Fig. 1c) was discovered in 1976. This non-nutritive sweetener is made from sucrose by a process that substitutes 3 chloride atoms for 3 hydroxyl groups on the sucrose molecule (FDA 2006). Sucralose is 450–650 times sweeter than sucrose, has a pleasant sweet taste and its quality and time intensity profile is very close to that of sucrose (Arora et al. 2009). It has a moderate synergy with other nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners. (Beyts et al. 1995).
It is very much soluble in water and is stable over a wide range of pH and temperature. It does liberate HCl when stored at high temperature and produce some kind of discoloration (Beyts et al. 1995).
Synthesis
The synthesis of sucralose involves a series of selective protection and deprotection steps so that the 4-hydroxyl group can be converted to a chloro atom with inversion of configuration. Treatment of the free hydroxyl groups with sulfuryl chloride produce trichlorodisaccharide which is then deprotected to give the sucralose (Ager et al. 1998). The use of enzymes or microbial cultures to augment synthetic organic chemistry and carry our selected functionalization of complex molecule has been widely documented in the growing field of biocatalysis (Wong and Whitesides 1994).
Metabolism and health aspect
Although sucralose is made from sugar, the human body does not recognize it as a sugar and does not metabolize it therefore it provides no calories. The bulk of sucralose ingested does not leave the gastrointestinal tract and is directly excreted in the feces while 11–27% of it is absorbed (Knight 1993). The amount that is absorbed from the gastro intestinal tract is largely removed from the blood stream by the kidneys and eliminated in the urine. As it is an organo chloride and some of which are known to have significant toxicity (Patel et al. 2006) but sucralose is not known to be toxic. In addition sucralose does not breakdown or dechlorinate. In determining the safety of sucralose, the FDA reviewed data from more than 110 studies in human and animals. Many of the studies were designed to identify possible toxic effects including carcinogenic reproductive and neurological effects but no such effects were found. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval is based on the findings that sucralose is safe for human consumption. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approved sucralose as a general-purpose sweetener. The acceptable daily intake (ADI) for sucralose in US is 5mg/kg body weight/day. The estimated daily intake for percentile consumers as calculated by USFDA is 1.6mg/kg body weight/day (USFDA 1999).5 -
Thanks for branching this, @System . Sucralose is my sweetener of choice, even so I rarely use it. I'm still alive so that's my data point.3
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Let's see, 4 packets in coffee in morning.
8-16 ozs of diet soda in evening.
I guess I'm way under the ADI.
I'll guess I'll have to do some research on why even some is absorbed. Been a long time, when it first came out.
What is confused that would cause that if not recognized as sugar or something to normally not absorb?
And could whatever that reason be effect some more than others, and why?
Inquiring minds want to know. Ok, just my curious mind.0 -
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Let's see, 4 packets in coffee in morning.
8-16 ozs of diet soda in evening.
I guess I'm way under the ADI.
I'll guess I'll have to do some research on why even some is absorbed. Been a long time, when it first came out.
What is confused that would cause that if not recognized as sugar or something to normally not absorb?
And could whatever that reason be effect some more than others, and why?
Inquiring minds want to know. Ok, just my curious mind.
Some discussion of it here, on page 3, Section B: https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/98fr/040398a.pdf0 -
Is that the ingredient in the evil gummy bears? I think my friend is super sensitive to it, but I may be thinking of the wrong stuff.0
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Is that the ingredient in the evil gummy bears? I think my friend is super sensitive to it, but I may be thinking of the wrong stuff.
Had to Google it, but supposedly the dreaded Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears are sweetened with Lycasin - of which a major component is apparently maltitol (a sugar alcohol).1 -
I avoid sucralose...because I don't like the taste. I haven't found any sugar substitutes that I do enjoy, so I stick to cane sugar, honey, and maple syrup.0
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I drink my coffee unsweetened now, but when I was pregnant with gestational diabetes I used sucralose. It didn't spike my blood sugar and one packet lasted for 3 cups of coffee. Win/win!4
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Pretty sure this is the sweetener in a low cal ice cream I tried. Based on the "result" of that, I'm avoiding it. Did not agree with my system.0
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The dreaded gummies use malitol and sorbitol - sugar alcohols - and these are the ones that most have a tendency to tear up the digestive tract. Interestingly enough, erythritol - another sugar alcohol - doesn't seem to have the same effect. I know that sugar free breath mints sweetened with malitol and sorbitol have the same effect on me as the gummies would have.
Back on topic, I had a co-worker whose wife was allergic to Sucralose, but other than that, I have not heard any negatives against it. I personally don't like the taste, so I stick to stevia for my sweetener of choice.2 -
I've been using sucralose for sweetener ever since it came out - I was using equal before that, and aspartame in the beginning. I don't have any ill effects from the sucralose, and no aftertaste issues. When it came out it was touted as safer than the other artificial sweeteners because it was "made from sugar" which I eventually realized was misleading - tweaking the molecular structure of a food to make it a non-food sort of makes what it was originally a moot point.
So far I haven't run into a sugar alcohol that causes me issues, but I don't eat sugar free gummy bears either so I haven't tried everything (and am willing to take the majority opinion for some things
)
I don't think sucralose or other artificial sweeteners are harmful if it doesn't cause you any problems. I do think they've all been studied to death, in part because the sugar industry has targeted the potential safety issues so relentlessly that the artificial sweetener manufacturers have been motivated to collect a boat-load of solid evidence to counter the ad blitzes.6 -
Yes. anything that is not real sugar that come from beets or cane is NOT sugar. Honey and sugar are the only things I would trust putting in me. The remainder, even stevia now is also mixed with chemicals that our body doesn't register as food26
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gracie97007 wrote: »Yes. anything that is not real sugar that come from beets or cane is NOT sugar. Honey and sugar are the only things I would trust putting in me. The remainder, even stevia now is also mixed with chemicals that our body doesn't register as food
No. To all of that.6 -
gracie97007 wrote: »Yes. anything that is not real sugar that come from beets or cane is NOT sugar. Honey and sugar are the only things I would trust putting in me. The remainder, even stevia now is also mixed with chemicals that our body doesn't register as food
And your evidence for this bit of silliness is what exactly?6
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