Safety of sugar substitutes remains inconclusive after years of research

[Zorro]

On a June day in 1878, Constantin Fahlberg, a research chemist conducting experiments in a Johns Hopkins University lab, sat down to eat, bit into a roll — some accounts say it was bread — and found it amazingly sweet. Because he had forgotten to first wash his hands, he assumed something he’d touched in the lab had contaminated his food. He searched his workspace, tasting vials, beakers and dishes until he found it. A beaker had boiled over, mixing o-sulfobenzoic acid with phosphorus (V) chloride and ammonia.

The result was benzoic sulfimide — or, as we know it today, saccharin. Fahlberg’s discovery ushered in a burgeoning new industry that promised hope for millions struggling to lose weight, and for people with diabetes who needed to control their blood sugar.

Saccharin provided the sweetness they craved, but without the sugar or calories. Other sugar substitutes followed, including more than a half-dozen products approved by the Food and Drug Administration. (The use of sugar alcohols such as sorbitol and xylitol — also sweet, but which contain about half the calories as sugar — also became popular.)

Yet, if something seems too good to be true, maybe it is.

In recent years, studies have questioned the safety of sugar substitutes — collectively called artificial sweeteners, although some come from natural substances — and whether consuming them helps or harms the body. The research still is inconclusive. Even saccharin came under scrutiny during the 1970s after research suggested it might cause bladder cancer in rats, and the government attempted to ban it. Subsequent studies, however, could not prove the link in humans, and saccharin remains on the market.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/safety-of-sugar-substitutes-remains-inconclusive-after-years-of-research/2020/05/22/ee29e32e-8406-11ea-a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html

[Mike 03]

1. Fascinating article

Dana Small, director of the modern diet and physiology research center at Yale University, found that drinking diet sodas with carbohydrates changes how the body reacts to insulin, and reduces the brain’s response to sweet taste.

“We think what’s happening is that the presence of the artificial sweetener causes the carbohydrate to be mishandled in some way that changes how the brain responds to sugar,” she says. She did find, however, that drinking an artificially sweetened beverage in small quantities by itself wasn’t harmful. “So go ahead and have your diet drink in moderation, but don’t do it when you are eating lunch,” she says.

[DFW]

2. For as long as the jury has been out on those things

That is how long I have been avoiding them (and that's all my life). No Aspartame, no saccharin, I'll take the risk with honey or even brown sugar.

And if something has high fructose corn syrup, you can cross that of my list, too. Luckily, it appears to be forbidden here. I have never seen it listed as an ingredient in anything produced here, anyway.