Artificial Sweeteners

Mustgetbuff

Some people have very strong feelings towards artificial sweeteners, but I'm a bit on the fence. My husband has type 1 diabetes and consequently artificial sweeteners are a godsend for his diet, and due to his reliance on them I also use them frequently as well, especially because I hate the idea of drinking empty calories from coffee, tea, and soda. I know it's often recommended to just use sugar since it will do a better job at satisfying a craving and artificial sweeteners are processed by the body in the same way as sugar, so you may as well eat the real stuff. But...calories.

As I was making my coffee this morning with milk and two packets of sweetener, I noticed for the first time that there was a food warning on my Sugar Twin: "Take only on the advice of a physician." My husband and I got talking about this and he mentioned that when he was first diagnosed, his doctor explained the hazards of consuming too many artificial sweeteners and noted that moderation is key.

What would be considered an extreme use of artificial sweeteners? Do you use them? Hate them? Love them?

SideSteel

Staying way under 40mg/kg body weight would be a good idea for aspartame.

As a point of reference, that's about 20 diet sodas per day for someone around 165lbs.
If you have PKU, you'd want to avoid aspartame completely due to phenylalanine.

EDIT: Math was off. It's closer to 20 cans/day, not the 40 I posted earlier. Either way, if you're consuming that much diet soda you probably going to have other concerns beyond aspartame. Such as your teeth falling out.

leannerae40

I use them often. In baking, when I have a sweet tooth, etc. I've heard it all about how bad they are. I continue to use them and I've lost 80 lbs. I should think that the 80 lb weight loss will undo the negative effects (if there are any) of the 2 packets of sweetener than I always have in my coffee in the morning too. Everything in moderation, and know that it's completely up to you. I like that Splenda measures the same as sugar in baking and that's why I choose it.

_errata_

Staying way under 40mg/kg body weight would be a good idea for aspartame.

As a point of reference, that's about 40 diet sodas per day for someone around 165lbs.
If you have PKU, you'd want to avoid aspartame completely due to phenylalanine.

Good to know!

I use artificial sweeteners because I don't want to feel like an *kitten* when I dump the entire thing of sugar into my coffee. lol

TeaBea

I limit them....I do drink a can of diet soda everyday. But I learned to drink tea unsweentened (except for Chai....milk & sweetener please). My cup of chai is more like a snack....not my typical caffiene fix.

My opinion.....Americans are too relient on sweeteners - natural or otherwise. Everything we drink has to be flavored & sweet. If (natural) fruit is sweet....adding sugar makes it taste even better. Sugar is a trigger for me....so I try to eliminate it when I can.

littlelaura

Have you tried stevia in the raw packets? I use that and have had no issues.
I have seen also monkfruit in the raw packets as well which are an all natural sweetener, but have not tried that.
My mom likes it better than stevia.Both safe for diabetics to use , I am type 2.

ninerbuff

Staying way under 40mg/kg body weight would be a good idea for aspartame.

As a point of reference, that's about 40 diet sodas per day for someone around 165lbs.
If you have PKU, you'd want to avoid aspartame completely due to phenylalanine.

THIS. They are fine for most of the general public if not over consumed. Just like anything else.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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melissalatzel24

stevia is obviously the healthiest option since its natural from a leaf. it does have a bit of a taste that takes getting used to, so if stevia isn't for you, you should look for sweeteners without aspartame ) in south africa we have "eetless suganon" , they super sweet and so small)

or canderel that is made with a bit stevia in it...

i think the main thing is to avoid the aspartame ingredient in most sweeteners...

Mustgetbuff

Great, so basically you would have to be really overdoing it for any kind of health risk to be a factor. I have some in my coffee and tea (as Teabea pointed out, milk and sweetener are a must for a delicious chai dessert in a cup!). I use Mio and will have a can of diet Pepsi with rye if I feel like a drink, but I don't bake and rarely do I require sugar in my meals, so it wasn't a huge concern for me. Regardless, I was curious as to what would be a ballpark intake limit.

I think my husband's in the same boat as you, Errata! He's coined the 'quad-quad' at Tim Hortons whenever he orders coffee: four cream and four sweetener. Bleh!

I haven't tried Stevia before. It seems a bit difficult to find here and it's considerably more money than other sweetener options. If I was consuming it by the boatload I would probably make more of an effort to get my hands on it!

ehorn625

Put sweet and low in my coffee and tea. Hasn't killed me or stalled my weight loss.:laugh:

aylajane

As in everything, moderation is key. It is possible to overdose. When splenda first came out, I actually liked the taste - hated aspartame so this was like a god-send for me. But I was eating 4 bowls of oatmeal a day with 9 packets of splenda in EACH... plus it was in my salad dressing and water. 40 packets a day roughly... NOT GOOD. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia after a year of complaining about a wide variety of symptoms. One night I was reading online and came across the side-effects of splenda and had a light-bulb moment. Cut it all out, and within a few months i was completely back to normal. I have read several other cases of auto-immune diagnosis that turned out to be "cured" when the person cut out diet soda or other artificial sweeteners. I avoided it for years, but now I use it along with other sweeteners in moderation (i dont rely on one anymore!).

And I know everyone touts Stevia because it is "natural" (so is arsenic by the way...) and because it is good for diabetics. The reason it is good for diabetics is because it not only does not raise your blood sugar, it can actually lower it. I have fairly low blood sugar normally (70-80 almost all the time, eating or not). I switched to stevia for a month, starting having tunnel vision and nearly passed out several times... almost always midway through lunch or afternoon. Finally tied it to my big container of tea sweetened with stevia. As a test to confirm, I tested my blood sugar after drinking half the bottle, and it dropped to 50-60, and once to 40! I switched to using monk fruit extract and all was fine again.

I still use artificial sweeteners, because I dont want just extra calories if not needed, but I am very aware now of changes that start at the same time as them, and I am very careful to use only as much as I really really need! I check all ingredients all the time. I recently bought a vitamin water thinking it had splenda in it like it used to. I didnt notice the "naturally sweetened" new label on it - it was made with stevia. I figured it out when I arrived at a meeting (swigging on the way) and was so dizzy I fell against the wall on the way in. These suckers may not be bad for you generally, but somehow I feel they will kill me yet

_John_

And I know everyone touts Stevia because it is "natural" (so is arsenic by the way...)

appropriate levels of Arsenic (usually as arsenate or arsenite in drinking water/food) actually increases insulin sensitivity. Arsenic has been a common adetive to animal feeds to increase growth.

Too much contributes to type II diabetes.

Everything in moderation...(even if it's micrograms).

stealthq

Staying way under 40mg/kg body weight would be a good idea for aspartame.

As a point of reference, that's about 40 diet sodas per day for someone around 165lbs.
If you have PKU, you'd want to avoid aspartame completely due to phenylalanine.

THIS. They are fine for most of the general public if not over consumed. Just like anything else.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Yep.

A caution about sugar alcohols, though - eating too much of them can cause intestinal upset, and 'too much' is not a ridiculous amount. On the plus side (I think) you'll know you've had too much within an hour or so, and you won't want to do it again.

coccodrillo72

Even if most artificial sweeteners on the market are generally considered safe * in moderate quantity * if you look close enough almost all of them have been associated with health problems (these are just a small fraction, just try a search on Pubmed for a lot more):

Formaldehyde, aspartame, and migraines: a possible connection.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18627677
Aspartame-induced fibromyalgia http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21176433
Intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks and risk of preterm delivery http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/3/626.long
Overlooked aspartame-induced hypertension http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18708962

Even for Stevia there are legitimate concerns: in a study [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8962427] the researchers found that intestinal bacteria in rats (but they found the same bacteria in human colon) transformed steviosides (the active ingredient in Stevia) into a compound called steviol, which is toxic, causing an increase in mutagenic DNA damage. The "safe" dosage seems to be no more than 1.8 mg per pound of body weight.

The only harmless artificial sweetener seems to be erythritol:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19632091
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16277764

But besides health concerns there are other effects involved in artificial sweeteners consumption:

1) overcompensation for expected caloric reduction. People say: "hey, there is no sugar in my soda, so I can eat more pizza"

2) an appetite boosting effects caused by the sweet nerve sensations from our tongue that is not compensated by the appetite suppressing effects of the caloric food entering our system: this usually results in overeating

In Artificial sweeteners and the neurobiology of sugar cravings Yang writes: "Whether due to a successful marketing effort
on the part of the diet beverage industry or not, the weight conscious public often consider artificial sweeteners “health food”. But do artificial sweeteners actually help reduce weight? Surprisingly, epidemiologic data suggest the contrary. Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain"
The full article here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/pdf/yjbm_83_2_101.pdf

Sucrose activates human taste pathways differently from artificial sweetener
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18096409

callie006

I try to avoid them because they are so intensely sweet they mess with my palate, so with regular use, I start expecting sweet things to be ridiculously sweet. If I don't use them much, I tend to be satisfied with desserts and other sweets that have less added sugar. I do, however, sometimes have some sort of diet soda or diet iced tea when I want something other than water at a restaurant and they do not have unsweetened iced tea. Splenda (sucralose) I avoid at all cost because I react badly to it.

NimmerStill

Is there any causational, not just correlational, research on the "artificial sweeteners associated with weight gain" idea? So far, all I've seen is "they don't help you lose weight" (which no one ever claimed they do), and "maybe they stimulate your appetite" (but I've never seen a controlled study on that particular thing).

NimmerStill

And I know everyone touts Stevia because it is "natural" (so is arsenic by the way...)

appropriate levels of Arsenic (usually as arsenate or arsenite in drinking water/food) actually increases insulin sensitivity. Arsenic has been a common adetive to animal feeds to increase growth.

Too much contributes to type II diabetes.

Everything in moderation...(even if it's micrograms).

So is deadly nightshade then. Is that a more apt analogy?

superfox12082

Anthing with artificial sweetners makes me feel ill and has me running to the bathroom within minutes. It took me years and many doctor visits before I figured this out (no help from the doctors). I can't even chew sugar free gum without feeling sick. :noway:

coccodrillo72

Is there any causational, not just correlational, research on the "artificial sweeteners associated with weight gain" idea?

I haven't seen one yet, but strong correlation (both forward and reverse) is surely cause for concen. And there is growing data about possibile health problems so for me it's a no brainer: they should to avoided (with the possibile exception of erythritol).

NimmerStill

I disagree that there's any cause for concern if it's just correlational. That could be easily explained just if people who consume artificial sweeteners tend to eat more, for example because they're the type of people who would be concnerned about weight, but not concerned enough to actually go on a diet.

And there is not growing data on any other health concern that I'm aware of.