I am sure you know of someone who is trying to cut back on sugar for health reasons since consuming too much sugar is not good for your health.
'Fake' sugars (artificial sweenteners and sugar substitutues) are very popular since many people consider them to be a healthier alternative to the real thing. Low and zero calorie sweeteners have been used in diet drinks for decades.
Under new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines (in USA), companies will no longer be allowed to label a food as "healthy" unless it adheres to strict new limits on added sugars. One way food companies can adhere to these proposed rule is to replace added sugars in foods with artificial sweeteners.
So the food industry 'helps' by quietly replacing sugar in packaged food with sucralose, stevia, allulose, erythritol and many other artifical sweeteners and sugar substitutes. These packaged foods include bread, yogurt, muffins, oatmeal, salad dressings, canned soups, condiments and snack bars.
Researchers and scientists used to think that sugar substitutes were mostly inert, that they just activate sweet receptors on our tongues and pass through our bodies without causing any metabolic changes.
Well, latest guidelines from WHO now say that consuming too much 'fake' sugar is much worse. Yes, artificial sweenteners and sugar substitutues might sweeten your food without increasing calories, but studies show that they can affect your gut, metabolic, heart health, promote stronger sugar cravings and affect your insulin resistance, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes.
Since these low calorie sweeteners are so commonly found in the food we consume, most people are not even aware that they are there. They are high intensity sweeteners because the are often hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar. Some are synthetic like aspartame, saccharin and sucralose while others like allulose, stevia and monk fruit extract are referred to as "natural" since they are derived from plants.
Sometimes, they are listed as adventame, neotame and acesulfame potassium, names that are not so easily recognizable at all.
Just so you know, many of these sweeteners are also found in cereals, juices, chocolate milk and other packaged food marketed to kids despite opposition from public health groups.
When subjects were given aspartame, saccharin, stevia or sucralose (even well below FDA's daily allowances), they caused changes both in function and composition of their gut's microbiomes, bacteria, viruses and fungi (Suez et al, 2022) that become detrimental to our metabolic health.
These microbiomes are very important as they transform the food we eat into enzymes, hormones and vitamins. The microbiomes produce compounds that reduces inflammation, and other health benefits when we eat nutritious fiber rich food like fruits, vegetables and nuts.
In that same study (Suez et al, 2022), saccharin and sucralose worsened subjects' blood sugar control, some more dramtically than others suggesting that these sweeteners have different effects on different people.
Drinking beverages made from sucralose can cause insulin resistance (Yamina, 2018), a precursor to diabetes. Food we eat is normally converted to glucose, which causes the pancreas to release insulin. Insulin either uses the glucose for energy (especially when we exercise) or store the glucose.
Insulin resistance happens when too much sugar substitute is consumed, disrupting the process (of the pancreas releasing insulin), causing your cells to stop responding properly to insulin and leads to chronically elevated blood sugar levels.
These artificial sweeteners also affect our brains and appetites. The sweet taste receptors on our tongues tells our brain that we are eating something sweet, signaling to the brain and body that an influx of calories are coming. However, these artificial sweeteners are much more potent than normal sugar with fewer or none of the calories, they can confuse the brain and taste receptors causing stronger sugar cravings.
A large study also found that a high intake of artificial sweeteners increased the risk of strokes and coronary heart disease (Debras et al, 2022), while another study found that erythritol consumed in large amounts stayed in subjects' system for days and had the potential to cause blood clots (Witkowski et al, 2023).
So what do you do? Eat sugar and be damned. Eat fake sugar and be even more damned. My suggestion is to learn to read food labels and ingredient lists to avoid them or have as little as possible.
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| Coke Zero is worse than the original |
For those less geeky, be very cautious about replacing sugary food with sugar substitutes. It is best not to consume any kind of low or no calorie sweentener in moderation or none at all. Yes! I get to drink real Coke after my long Saturday rides before work! (Me thinking out loud). I never liked diet Coke or Coke Zero anyway. Remember, real sugar is not your enemy during long exercise sessions and definitely not immediately after an intense exercise session.
A simple way is to reduce your intake of highly processed foods since they contain lots of artificial sweeteners and additives.
References
Debras C, Chazelas E, Sellem L et al (2022). Artificial Sweeteners And Risk Of Cardiovascular Diseases: Results From The Prospective NutriNet- Sante Cohort. BMC. 378: :e071204. DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2022-071204
Rios-Leyvraz M and Montez J (2023). Health Effects Of The Use Of Non-Sugar Sweeteners. A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis. WHO. IBSN: 978-92-4-004642-9
Suez J, Cohen Y, Valdes-Mas R et al (2022). Personalized Microbiome-Driven Effects Of Non-Nutritive Sweeteners On Human Glucose Tolerance. Cell. 1;185 (18): 3307-3328.e19. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.016.
Witkowski M, Nemet I, Alamri H et al (2023). The Artificial Sweetener Erythritol And Cardiovascular Event Risk. Nat Med. 29: 710-718. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02223-9.
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