Posted on 02/28/2023 11:11:11 AM PST by Red Badger
The suspected health harms of artificial sweeteners are piling up – and now a new study has linked one kind of sugar substitute to higher risks of heart health problems.
Physician-scientist Stanley Hazen and colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute wanted to see if they could find any signs that could warn people they were at greater risk of heart attack and stroke.
They found it in blood levels of organic compounds used as sweeteners, specifically erythritol; a sweetener commonly used in low sugar, sugar-free, and no-carb foods.
Among a group of 1,157 patients undergoing tests at a cardiovascular clinic, those with the highest levels of these compounds in their blood had twice the risk of dying from or experiencing a major cardiovascular event in the three years that followed.
"Our findings suggest the need for further safety studies examining the long-term effects of artificial sweeteners in general, and erythritol specifically, on risks for heart attack and stroke, particularly in patients at higher risk for CVD," the researchers write in their published paper.
Artificial sweeteners are thought to be chemically inert, but scientists are finding these low-calorie compounds are not necessarily free from health consequences.
While naturally present in very small amounts in fruit and vegetables, levels of sweeteners like erythritol can be 1,000-fold higher in processed foods.
Research shows artificial sweeteners can muck with the microbes in our gut in a way that leads to weight gain and diabetes, and may increase the risk of developing cancer.
Part of the problem is that while artificial sweeteners have fewer calories than the sugars they are replacing – and that may help some people cut down their intake – they taste sweeter and encourage our bodies to want even more of the sugary taste.
"There is an ongoing discussion of the safety of sweeteners – partly because some studies show an increased risk for chronic diseases among those who consume sweeteners, especially in soft drinks," explains Gunter Kuhnle, a professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading in the UK.
This new study found a link between levels of erythritol in the blood and future risk of heart attack or stroke – an association that also appeared in two other cohorts of nearly 3,000 people, combined, from the US and Denmark.
This led Hazen and colleagues to investigate potential mechanisms by which erythritol might increase risk, with lab studies using blood samples from a small group of eight healthy volunteers.
Blood erythritol levels peaked and remained high for two to three days after volunteers downed an erythritol-sweetened drink, before returning to normal. Adding erythritol to whole blood samples also increased blood stickiness and other measures linked to blood clotting, with similar effects seen in animal studies.
It goes some way to showing how consuming high levels of artificial sweeteners could possibly trigger a cascade of changes in the blood that may lead to a cardiovascular event.
"[T]his paper effectively shows multiple pieces of a jigsaw exploring the effects of erythritol," says Aston University dietitian Duane Mellor.
But he says the study does not rule out other sources of erythritol in the blood, which can also be made from other sugars inside our bodies, particularly if we eat lots and move little.
The amount of added erythritol that volunteers consumed was also significantly higher than quantities permitted in store-bought drinks in the UK. But the study authors argue their chosen amount reflects the daily intake of some Americans.
Regulatory agencies are alert to the potential health risks of artificial sweeteners; their job is to figure out what levels of food additives are safe to consume based on the available evidence.
Just last year, a study involving more than 100,000 volunteers from France flagged an increased risk of heart disease with greater dietary intake of artificial sweeteners, which participants recorded daily.
Observational studies such as this better reflect people's usual diets, but aren't without their shortcomings. The challenge is sifting through the many other lifestyle factors that also affect heart health in big ways, such as physical activity, and trying to isolate the possible effects of one particular food or food additive from entire diets.
Nutritional epidemiologist Nita Forouhi of the University of Cambridge says the latest study extends previous research on the potential health harms of artificial sweeteners and its findings warrant further investigation.
However, because people in the study already had a lot of cardiovascular risk factors, it's hard to generalize the study findings to healthy populations. Three-quarters of the study participants had high blood pressure or coronary artery disease, and one-fifth had diabetes.
Until we know more about the long-term health effects of erythritol and other artificial sweeteners, it's probably best to stick to what we know is good for our general health: reducing our sugar intake by cutting down on sweetened drinks and highly processed foods of all varieties.
"Individual artificial sweeteners are not currently reported upon which makes their tracking difficult as well as limit the ability to readily research their health impacts," says Forouhi.
The research has been published in Nature Medicine.
I can't speak for all diabetics, but...
I have very bad reactions to NutraSweet (aspertame).
I use Splenda (Sucralose), and Sweet One (acesulfame K).
Haven't seen Sweet One in stores in years, but acesulfame K is a common food/beverage ingredient.
My A1c is running around 5.6 to 5.8.
Erythritol is a naturally occurring sugar alcohol.
It is a competitor to synthetic sweeteners like Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal) and Sucralose (Splenda).
That makes me skeptical that this story is meant to protect the synthetics.
I have a friend with one gene Factor V Leiden. He had a miserable reaction to his first Moderna vaccine. He had a much worse reaction to his second Moderna vax. This was in early 2021 when my small city was having hearings on Covid and municipally supplied vaccines. I submitted testimony to the fact that Factor V and also Sickle Cell Trait and Disease (which affects Africn-Americans) were two blood conditions which might bear special attention. I suggested that at vaccine clinics, people with those conditions should be made aware of potential reactions and also be encouraged to stay more than 15 minutes to see if a bad reaction occurred after the shot. I also submitted an estimate as to how many thousands of the city residents might have those conditions. In addition I suggested that since around 2.5 times more Blacks were dying of Covid that it would be a good idea to encourage people to improve their immunity with Vitamin D3 capsules. I never saw any sign these advices were acted on by my local government.
Recently I saw titles of 2 articles on Factor V and the Covid issue, but unfortunately my computer jumped to another tab before I could copy the URLs for these articles. Perhaps someone else saw them and could send me the URLs.
You should be able to look at your browser history and see those previously viewed pages. Also, you could search again using the term “Factor V Leiden COVID.”
Oh please, who paid for this study?
If you have eaten sugar free candy and gotten explosive gas and/or diarrhea, you’ve had erythritol. A.k.a. sugar alcohols. For reference, read the comments on the sugar free gummie bears on Amazon. Hilarious.
If you’re doing KETO and eating this stuff, you’re doing it wrong and won’t lose weight. If you do manage to lose some, you’re going to have a rebound when you give up on KETO. Fix the snacking problem before proceeding.
For me, KETO works for my waistline and lipid profile. When I started, I could not quit snacking, so I skipped sitting down to meals and just broke my meals up into snacks. Over time, I have adapted to eating one low carb (<20) meal a day. Fasting does wonderful things for me. Everything about my health is improving, including arthritic pain.
Plain white sugar or honey.
I dont know what side of this you come down on so I dont really mean to be directing these thoughts directly toward you and since most research shows exactly what the government paid it to show vigilant suspicion is always wise.
Honestly, dont care. I doubt that this is the first. Youll note that this was a few months back and I had already heard of this a way back already then so I doubt that this was referring to that study. (Im intentionally being vague timewise, injuries have left me unreliable in that area.)
The cheerleaders arent going to listen anyway. Discussing sweeteners is like trying to talk someone out of their favorite cult and the responses tend to be exactly what one would expect from the average passive aggressive millennial.
The problem is that the “its natural” crowd insisted that it get put in everything and then started demanding that everyone else eat it because “its safe” and if you dont want to then “youre a conspiracy theorist.” Of course so was aspartame and sucralose until it wasnt. Just recently another article on the problems with most alternative sweeteners came out and we got the same false replies from the same stock owners that “never heard of this before.” We’ve been having these conversations around here for 20+ years on some of these things and the same regulars are still claiming that their half a dozen diet cokes a day or whatever their vice is would be perfectly safe so the “new and entirely unheard of” research should be disregarded until like dozens of other toxic food additives that we allow it just becomes so common that it fades into the background of the toxic burden the average American carries. There is research suggesting that saccharin may be safer than some of these but still the cultists rally behind their favorite because of their brand loyalty to the product that uses a particular one.
“Well, atchwoolly...”
Nope, dont want to hear it. I dont want or need a similar 20+ year conversation with any of these people on why erythritol is the bestest because erythritol cultists have already shown themselves to be the same as the others.
“Well, Im sorry you feel that way but we will have to agree to disagree because Im right. Its natural...”
So is arsenic. I would invite all of the cultists to use some of that and stop contaminating my food.
Low sugar fruit.
Sucralose?
I loved Tab, but only from glass bottles.
It’s often a lack of intellectual heft. Some just can’t process what they read and make sense of it, as they don’t have the capacity to do so.
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