If there is any common food product that everyone you know should avoid like the plague, it is sucralose (brand name Splenda). It is produced by Johnson & Johnson, and is the dominant artificial sweetener being used today.
The reason is that it is incredibly toxic to your healthy intestinal bacteria, but not for a bacteria strongly associated with morbid obesity, called enterobacter. In morbidly obese people, enterobacteria occupy almost 1/3rd of the space normally occupied by 30-40 different kinds of digestive bacteria.
(NIH data)
“After just 12 weeks of normal consumption of sucralose, the numbers of total anaerobes, bifidobacteria, lactobacilli, Bacteroides, clostridia, and total aerobic bacteria were significantly decreased; however, there was no significant treatment effect on enterobacteria.
“Also important was that 12 weeks after completely discontinuing sucralose, the healthy intestinal flora had still not recovered, indicating that effort must be made to ‘repair’ a healthy balance.
“Evidence indicates that a 12-wk administration of Splenda exerted numerous adverse effects, including (1) reduction in beneficial fecal microflora, (2) increased fecal pH, and (3) enhanced expression levels of (chemicals), which are known to limit the bioavailability of orally administered drugs.”
Meh (with all due respect to you).
I’ve been consuming Splenda since it came on the market. My stomach is fine and I’m not fat.