{"id":772,"date":"2017-08-20T02:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T02:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/2017\/08\/20\/new-studies-on-artificial-sweeteners\/"},"modified":"2020-07-26T00:33:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T00:33:56","slug":"new-studies-on-artificial-sweeteners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/?p=772","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Sweeteners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several papers have raised concerns about the long-term health effects of artificial sweeteners. In one study, researchers showed that a sweeter-tasting, lower-calorie drink caused people to eat more food, to have higher blood sugar levels and to be more likely to gain weight and become diabetic than a less-sweet, higher-calorie drink (<em>Current Biology<\/em>, August 11, 2017). Researchers controlled the sweetness of the drinks with the artificial sweetener sucralose, and the calorie content by adding tasteless maltodextrin. Results of the study suggest that a sweeter-tasting, lower-calorie drink is more likely to lead to weight gain and diabetes than a less-sweet drink with more calories.<\/p>\n<p>Two studies showed that people who take one diet drink a day are three times more likely than non-diet soda drinkers to suffer a stroke (<em>Stroke<\/em>, April 20, 2017) and are three time more likely than non-diet drinkers to become demented, with poorer memory, smaller brains and markers of accelerated brain aging (<em>Alzheimer&#8217;s &amp; Dementia<\/em>. published online March 5, 2017).<\/p>\n<p>A review of 30 studies followed for up to 10 years showed that no-calorie or very low-calorie sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and stevioside are associated with weight gain, increased waist circumference and higher incidence of obesity, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and heart attacks (<em>Canadian Medical Association Journal<\/em>. Jul 17, 2017;189(28):E929-E939). The authors state, &#8220;Evidence . . . does not clearly support the intended benefits of nonnutritive sweeteners for weight management, and observational data suggest that routine intake of non-nutritive sweeteners may be associated with increased BMI (weight gain) and cardiometabolic (heart attack) risk.&#8221; An earlier review of the world&#8217;s scientific literature showed in animal studies that artificial sweeteners are associated with weight gain, brain tumors, bladder cancer and other health hazards (<em>J Pharmacol Pharmacother<\/em>, Oct-Dec, 2011;2(4):236\u2013243).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugared Drinks Are Even Worse<\/strong><br \/>\nOne can of sugar-sweetened soda contains 25 to 50 grams of sugar, the recommended upper limit for sugar for an entire day. Many research papers have associated sugared drinks with:<br \/>\n\u2022 weight gain (<em>BMJ<\/em>, 2015;351:h3576)<br \/>\n\u2022 increased risk for diabetes (<em>Diabetes Care<\/em>, 2009;32:688\u2013694)<br \/>\n\u2022 Alzheimer&#8217;s disease in rats (<em>J Nutr Health Aging<\/em>. 2016;20:509\u2013513)<br \/>\n\u2022 high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attacks, and strokes (<em>Circulation<\/em>. 2012;125:1735\u20131741; <em>Am J Clin Nutr<\/em>, 2009;89:1037\u20131042; <em>J Gen Intern Med<\/em>, 2012;27:1120\u20131126)<\/p>\n<p><strong>My Recommendations<\/strong><br \/>\nI believe that regular consumption of either sugar-sweetened or artificially-sweetened drinks can be harmful to your health. The safest drink appears to be water. Unsweetened coffee and tea also appear to be safe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/nutrition\/stevia-may-affect-gut-bacteria.html\">Stevia May Affect Gut Bacteria<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/nutrition\/artificial-sweeteners-linked-to-higher-blood-sugar-levels.html\">Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Higher Blood Sugar Levels<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Checked 7\/25\/20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several papers have raised concerns about the long-term health effects of artificial sweeteners. In one study, researchers showed that a sweeter-tasting, lower-calorie drink caused people to eat more food, to have higher blood sugar levels and to be more likely to gain weight and become diabetic than a less-sweet, higher-calorie drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}