Posted on 09/21/2025 7:47:26 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Some sugar substitutes may come with unexpected consequences for long-term brain health, according to a study. The study examined seven low- and no-calorie sweeteners and found that people who consumed the highest amounts experienced faster declines in thinking and memory skills compared to those who consumed the lowest amounts.
The link was even stronger in people with diabetes.
The artificial sweeteners examined in the study were aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-K, erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol and tagatose.
The study included 12,772 adults from across Brazil. The average age was 52, and participants were followed for an average of eight years.
Researchers divided them into three groups based on the total amount of artificial sweeteners they consumed.
The lowest group consumed an average of 20 milligrams per day (mg/day) and the highest group consumed an average of 191 mg/day. For aspartame, this amount is equivalent to one can of diet soda. Sorbitol had the highest consumption, with an average of 64 mg/day.
After adjusting for factors, researchers found people who consumed the highest amount of sweeteners showed faster declines in overall thinking and memory skills than those who consumed the lowest amount, with a decline that was 62% faster. This is the equivalent of about 1.6 years of aging. Those in the middle group had a decline that was 35% faster than the lowest group, equivalent to about 1.3 years of aging.
When researchers broke the results down by age, they found that people under the age of 60 who consumed the highest amounts of sweeteners showed faster declines in verbal fluency and overall cognition when compared to those who consumed the lowest amounts. They did not find links in people over 60.
They found no link between the consumption of tagatose and cognitive decline.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Been usin the ...the...sweet thingy...yeah...and have not noticed....uhm....what was I talking about?
I procrastinate at a lot of things.
I was going to join a self-help group about it but I keep putting it off...
‘’what was I talking about?
You were saying you were going to donate your entire life savings to Free Republic.
“They didn’t even tested Sucralose because they knew that it couldn’t cause cognitive decline”
Pure junk science, dressed up as “epidemiological research” to make headlines and appeal to suckers and snake oil seller. Nothing can be concluded from it, much less informed dietary advice.
Agree. Stevia, especially, leaves a bitter aftertaste; as does saccharine.
The ‘study’ sounds like a paid ad for tagatose.
Wish they would have included Stevia in the study.
I use sorbitol but don’t eat it. Mixed with potassium nitrate
it makes good fuel for rockets.
Bkmk
Actually it is not. Sucrose is sucrose, whether it is honey or table sugar. It is the amount consumed that is harmful. Even a verse in the Bible says too much honey is not good.
Think honey and real maple syrup
I have that, too. It’s inherited. Even mouthwash with artificial sweetener leaves a bad taste, sometimes for hours.
[They know nothing about sweetener’s effect on cognitive decline, neither from sucralose, nor from any other substance.
This study is garbage, like any other nutrition “science” based on food questionnaires, uncontrolled samples, unknown physiological mechanism, fudge (’adjusting’) factors, results scouting (they didn’t test for an a priori hypothesis, they pull post-hoc conclusions out of their hats), unsignificant risk factors, irreproducible results...
Pure junk science, dressed up as “epidemiological research” to make headlines and appeal to suckers and snake oil seller. Nothing can be concluded from it, much less informed dietary advice.]
This says that they did not control for diet.
People often combine artificial sweetners with high carbohydrate diets ( the classic Big Mac, frys and diet coke) . It’s long been known to be worse for you than if you didn’t.
Tagatose did not cause the issues.
Tagatose was also not a controlled diet.
As others have said tagatose seems to be rare at the moment. Right now the cheap stuff works fine if you don’t combine it with carbohydrates.
The study was done where it was approved for use in food, in Brazil.
It is approved for use in foods in Brazil, alongside other countries like the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Korea.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780124046993000743
Thanks for that link. Apparently there are several reasons why it won’t be used more in foods. I’m checking a few studies about it and the one I like is that it can used as a fungicide. Talk about all pupose.
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