To not understand why tons of people believe artificial sweeteners are more harmful than sugar?

[HavelockVetinari]

There is no scientific evidence to back up the various claims that it's addictive, carcinogenic...etc. Yet I'm always reading posts on social media that disparage sugar-free drinks as dangerous and harmful to health, without a shred of evidence being offered.

I do understand that some people dislike the taste (so-called 'supertasters' apparently experienced a bitter aftertaste) but that doesn't make it harmful!

Well I think it does with no scientific evidence because I'm going on the logic:

Sugar is a plant, chopped up and grated

Artificial sweetener = load of unidentifiable chemicals

seems a no brainer to me 🤷‍♀️

Yes, we can cut down on sugar and no, we were never meant to eat it in quantity but it's not the devil

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29038387/

Will that do? It's a review article.

A search of several literature databases for publications on adverse effects of aspartame on the kidney function from 1980 to 2016 showed that long-term consumption of aspartame led to a dose-dependent increased production of free radicals in renal tissues as well as kidney injury, based on several studies on animals However, given the lack of clinical data in this area, it is difficult to make a definitive conclusion regarding nephrotoxic effect of aspartame. Overall, consumers should be aware of the potential side effects of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. At present it may be recommended that only a minimal amount of them would be consumed.

Basically, it causes damage in animals and thus is likely to cause it in humans, but we haven't got the experimental data for humans so can't say so definitively.

I think the artificial sweetener V sugar debate will go the same way as margarine V butter. Initially it seems like a good idea to replace the sugar with something that is not so calorific and bad for your teeth. But that does not mean that it cannot be bad for you in other ways that we do not yet know.

Artificial sweeteners taste vile to me so I don't drink them. I rarely drink anything sweetened but if I do I try make sure it's something that has none of them in it which is bloody difficult these days.

@TracyBeakerSoYeah I agree with you. The same happened with margarine and butter. After years of promoting the byproduct of a factory process that needs artificial colouring to make it look palatable, they realise that margarine is full of trans-fats and we are better off eating natural fats like butter. Luckily I had a wonderfully old-fashioned mother who was never seduced by fad diets, so I was brought up on a butter and full fat milk diet, as our my children. We are all slim.

I just don't like the taste, but also, tend to think that if you have a choice between natural and synthetic, natural is usually the better one as a rule of thumb. Not always - silicone for example is better than natural rubber for a lot of things. But things like butter vs vegetable oil spread, sugar vs sweeteners is closer to this. I'm not afraid of GM foods etc, but there is nothing wrong with sugar, as long as you're not constantly eating it all day every day adding it to everything. It wasn't broken and didn't need fixing.

I find that there is a lot of weird stuff said about sugar as well whereas really unless you're diabetic sugar is absolutely fine in moderation. It's terrible for your teeth but again you can fix this with moderation and brushing.

There is evidence that they stimulate a similar response to real sugar in terms of blood sugar with all the negative affects that come with it. It triggers migraines in me so although I actually prefer diet coke I can't have more than one in a week or that's two days out of my life I'll be spending curled up in a dark room.

• Sugar is a plant, chopped up and grated

Artificial sweetener = load of unidentifiable chemicals *

Actually, the artificial sweeteners are entirely identifiable (and, more to the point, identified) chemicals. 'Plant, chopped up and grated ' might well be full of unidentified chemicals - fortunately sugar is highly processed plant, with one particular chemical constituent, ie sucrose, being extracted.

Each to their own - the sorts of reactions some people have to artificial sweeteners don't sound too different to DHs reaction to sugar.

But they taste disgusting.

I haven't had a coke for about a year but if I fancy one tomorrow I don't want it to have fucking aspartame in it. Easy to understand, surely?

I would just prefer to eat natural food - it’s one of the reasons I won’t go vegan as I can’t stand over processed factory food nor can my digestive system.

There is evidence that they stimulate a similar response to real sugar in terms of blood sugar with all the negative affects that come with it.

It seems quite possible, that given these molecules cause a similar response in taste receptors, they might do so elsewhere in the body.

.... avoid sugar and sweeteners?

They taste disgusting, they disrupt gut flora, and cause weight gain and metabolic disorders.

They also make my 3 year old absolutely hyper. Quite why it has become so difficult to find Calpol with a bit of sugar in is anybody's guess - I mean who exactly is it who is pumping their kids so full of Calpol, so often, that we need to get a fit of the vapours about a little bit of sugar in a 5ml spoon of a needed medicine?

After all, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down....

I agree Errol, they seem to trigger a response in the brain that is akin to when you've eaten sugar. So given they are SO vile, why not just eat a little sugar on occasion, as long as it is in moderation and as part of an overall healthy diet?

@BluebellCockleshell123 I was writing he same thing at the same time!

This Guardian article about Yudkin is long but worth reading. It is about his view that too much sugar was the cause of health problems that were blamed on too much fat. However, Yudkin never encouraged a diet full of artificial sweetener. At the time that Yudkin was writing aspartame was only really available as a tabletop sweetener for tea or coffee, because it does not have the other properties that make sugar good for preserving food, adding bulk and so forth.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

Yudkin's book is here - www.teethforlife.co.za/images/Pure,%20White%20and%20Deadly%20-%20%20John%20Yudkin.pdf

Sugar really isn't a chopped up grated plant.

It is massively processed to extract the sweetness, much the same way that stevia is. One of them is branded artificial, I used to grow the other.

I thought Aspartame was a carcinogen. And many sweeteners have laxative effects (might be a good thing for some.)

A question: when you eat something sweet, is the release of insulin triggered in the body when you taste it, or when it is digested and hits your bloodstream? Because I could see how that would have implications for metabolism and insulin insensitivity.

In the US they have claims that they cause cancer in rats on the packets.

That's news to this Yank. I'm looking at a packet of sucralose (brand name Splenda) that says no such thing.

There was one study that suggested this for saccharin in the early 1970's but later studies didn't any risk in humans and no warning is required on the packaging for it or any other FDA approved sweetener.

www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/additional-information-about-high-intensity-sweeteners-permitted-use-food-united-states

While pregnant artificial sweeteners gave me horrendous heartburn and diarrhea. It was awful, they're in almost every single type of heartburn medication.

I can't stand the taste. I can notice it even when I don't know it is there and have been caught out by several drinks I thought were juice based. Yes orangina, I am looking at you and won't forgive the betrayal. They have no ill effects on me that I have noticed, but I guess I avoid so would never consume enough to test if they would.

There is clear scientific correlation that people who consume more diet sodas weigh more. Agree this does not prove causation as they could be trying to reduce sugar in drinks because they are bigger.

The solution to sugar addiction is to eat less sugar. Not replace it with artificial sweetener. Just get used to less sugar in your diet.

I don’t know what a ‘so-called supertaster’ is but I can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners. It’s not a bitter ‘aftertaste’, it’s the actual taste. And when I was pregnant with DC3, anything with an artificial sweetener in made me vomit. Didn’t happen with my first two pregnancies for some reason.
I don’t get why because they personally don’t taste/experience something, some people believe that no one can.

I thought Aspartame was a carcinogen

Why did you think that though? That's sort of the point of the thread.

As to whether sweeteners taste disgusting - obviously, taste varies between people. If everyone found sweeteners unpalatable, the products containing them wouldn't get sold in massive quantities. Personally I'm not keen on aspartame but find sucralose fine.

My GP suggested removing any artificial sugar from my diet as I was getting frequent migraines.

The hypotheses seemed to prove that there was indeed a difference in the frequency of migraines with artificial sugar removed.

As mentioned before I can't be sure of the correlation vs causation however, I can be sure that for some reason, since cutting artificial sweetener out I have seen a reduction in migraines.

They all taste vile to me - bitter and "chemically". So many things that I enjoyed as an occasional refreshing summer drink - SAN Pellegrino, sprite, etc - are now out. Meh. Moderation in everything is key. Sugar in excess might be bad but in moderation it's fine.

There is research, it is published, but if your paper or website receives money from a manufacturer that uses them, you won't "shit" in your plate:

{Although artificial sweeteners were developed as a sugar substitute to help reduce insulin resistance and obesity, data in both animal models and humans suggest that the effects of artificial sweeteners may contribute to metabolic syndrome and the obesity epidemic. Artificial sweeteners appear to change the host microbiome, lead to decreased satiety, and alter glucose homeostasis, and are associated with increased caloric consumption and weight gain.}

{Acesulfame-potassium (Ace-K), a FDA-approved artificial sweetener, is commonly used, but its toxicity data reported to date are considered inadequate. In particular, the functional impact of Ace-K on the gut microbiome is largely unknown. In this study, we explored the effects of Ace-K on the gut microbiome and the changes in fecal metabolic profiles using 16S rRNA sequencing and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) metabolomics. We found that Ace-K consumption perturbed the gut microbiome of CD-1 mice after a 4-week treatment. The observed body weight gain, shifts in the gut bacterial community composition, enrichment of functional bacterial genes related to energy metabolism, and fecal metabolomic changes were highly gender-specific, with differential effects observed for males and females. In particular, ace-K increased body weight gain }

{a novel understanding of the interaction between artificial sweeteners and the gut microbiome, as well as the potential role of this interaction in the development of obesity and the associated chronic inflammation.}

{The Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) analysis also indicated that the control mice and neotame-treated mice have different metabolic patterns and some key genes such as butyrate synthetic genes were decreased. Moreover, neotame consumption also changed the fecal metabolite profiles. Dramatically, the concentrations of multiple fatty acids, lipids as well as cholesterol in the feces of neotame-treated mice were consistently higher than controls.}