Tag Archives: artificial sweeteners

Do Sugar Substitutes Cause Overweight and T2 Diabetes?

Posted on January 30, 2015 | 2 comments

We don’t know with certainty yet. But a recent study suggests that non-caloric artificial sweeteners do indeed cause overweight and type 2 diabetes in at least some folks. The study at hand is very small, so I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. I’m not changing any of my recommendations at this point.

exercise for weight loss and management, dumbbells

Too many diet sodas?

 

The proposed mechanism for adverse metabolic effects of sugar substitutes is that they alter the mix of germs that live in our intestines. That alteration in turn causes  the overweight and obesity. See MedPageToday for the complicated details. The first part of the article is about mice; humans are at the end.

Some quotes:

“Our results from short- and long-term human non-caloric sweetener consumer cohorts suggest that human individuals feature a personalized response to non-caloric sweeteners, possibly stemming from differences in their microbiota composition and function,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers further suggested that these individualized nutritional responses may be driven by personalized functional differences in the micro biome [intestinal germs or bacteria].

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Diabetes researcher Robert Rizza, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not involved with the research, called the findings “fascinating.”

He noted that earlier research suggests people who eat large amounts of artificial sweeteners have higher incidences of obesity and diabetes. The new research, he said, suggests there may be a causal link.

“This was a very thorough and carefully done study, and I think the message to people who use artificial sweeteners is they need to use them in moderation,” he said. “Drinking 17 diet sodas a day is probably a bad idea, but one or two may be OK.”

I won’t argue with that last sentence! (Unless you have phenylketonuria and want to use aspartame.)

Finally, be aware that several clinical studies show no linkage between human consumption of non-caloric artificial sweeteners and overweight, obesity, and T2 diabetes.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Posted in Causes of Diabetes, Overweight

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NYT on the Search for the Perfect Natural Zero-Calorie Sweetener

Posted on January 26, 2014 | Comments Off on NYT on the Search for the Perfect Natural Zero-Calorie Sweetener
Are noncaloric sweeteners any better than an teaspoon of sugar in your coffee? Is honey better?

Are noncaloric sweeteners any better than an teaspoon of sugar in your coffee? Is honey healthier?

Daniel Engber has an article at the online New York Times on the quest for natural no-calorie sweeteners. Some quotes:

As badly as stevia needs the soft-drink companies, the soft-drink companies may need stevia even more. While sweetened carbonated beverages still make up around one-fifth of all the liquids we consume, the volume sold has dropped, per capita, every year since 1998. We’re more afraid of sugar than we’ve ever been. What yesterday were seen as “empty calories” have today been designated “toxic.” Doctors warn that cans of soda put fat into your liver, weaken your response to insulin and increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes. The panic over sugar has grown so pervasive that other dietary boogeymen — salt and fat and gluten — seem like harmless flunkies in comparison. (In 2012, when the market-research firm Mintel asked consumers which ingredients or foods they were trying to avoid, sugar and added sugar topped the list, by a wide margin.)

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Some consumers also wonder if the natural sweeteners aren’t simply different flavors of the products they’ve been trying to avoid. At the beginning of July, just as PepsiCo got approval for Reb-D and Coca-Cola said it would be working on Reb-X, a 58-year-old woman living in Hawaii filed suit against Big Stevia. In March she bought a box of Truvia at Walmart because she thought it was a natural product. Now she’s convinced it’s no such thing. Her complaint declared that “Reb-A is not the natural crude preparation of stevia,” and that its manufacture is not “similar to making tea,” as Cargill’s packaging suggests. Rather, it’s “a highly chemically processed and purified form of stevia-leaf extract.”

Hers was not the only attack on Cargill’s natural sweetener. In ongoing negotiations to settle a similar suit, Cargill has offered to remove the phrase “similar to making tea” from the packaging and/or add an asterisk to the product’s tagline, “Nature’s Calorie-Free Sweetener,” directing people to a website F.A.Q. That page would explain that Truvia contains very little stevia, by weight, and that its main ingredient — erythritol — comes from yeast that may be fed with genetically modified corn sugar. “As with almost all finished food products,” the F.A.Q. would say, “the journey from field to table involves some processing.”

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But what’s “natural” mean anyway?

It’s a question that has bedeviled beverage-makers, too. In the fall of 2012, a German food company surveyed 4,000 people in eight European countries, to find out how they understood the “natural” claim. Almost three-quarters said they thought that natural products were more healthful and that they’d pay a premium to get them. More than half argued that natural products have a better taste. But the respondents weren’t sure what degree or form of processing would be enough to strip a product of its natural status. Some drew a line between sea salt (natural) and table salt (artificial). Others did the same for dried pasta and powdered milk, though both are made by dehydration.

 Read the whole enchilada.

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Conner Middelmann Whitney: What About Artificial Sweeteners?

Posted on June 8, 2013 | 4 comments

Conner, a nutritionist, has an article up at Psychology Today. She doesn’t have too much heartburn about my allowance of stevia in the Parker paleo diet. For example, she writes:

Stevia, a non-caloric sweetener derived from the stevia rebaudiana plant, is a useful sugar alternative, if you don’t mind its slightly metallic, licorice-like taste. Choose minimally processed stevia (green-leaf liquid and powder) rather than the heavily processed white powder. (Stevia processing involves dozens of steps and lots of non-nutritive chemicals to conver tit form green leaf to white powder.)

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So, rather than search for the “perfect” sweetener, a better use of our creative energy might be to figure out how to lower our desire for sweet tastes and seek satisfaction from other flavors.

Agreed.

She favors honey when she uses a sweetener. But many diabetics will have unacceptable blood sugar spikes if they eat too much honey.

Much of her article is about sucralose (Splenda).

Read the whole enchilada.

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Artificial Sweeteners and the Paleoista

Posted on November 3, 2012 | 9 comments

Did you know babies under one year of age shouldn’t be given honey?  I saw that warning on a honey container recently and didn’t know why.  Honey may contain bacterial spores that cause botulism in the wee ones.

A pinch of salt helps reduce bitterness in coffee

Paleo diet aficionados can satisfy a sweet tooth with honey or fruit.  Unfortunately for people with diabetes, those items can spike blood sugars too high.  Honey, for instance, has 17 grams of carbohydrate in one tablespoon (15 ml), which is more carb than in a tablespoon of white granulated table sugar.

Most diabetics eating paleo-style will need some limit on consumption of honey and fruit.  Or they could take more diabetes drugs to control blood glucose elevations.  Again, unfortunately, we don’t know the long-term health effects of most of our diabetes drugs.

How about getting a sweet fix with artificial sweeteners?  Paleo purists would say “fuggedaboudit.”  In theory, that’s fine.  But many paleo followers with diabetes won’t forget about it.  They’ll use artificial sweeteners, aka sugar substitutes.

If you’re gonna use ’em, think about stevia.  It’s derived from a natural source, the leaves of a plant in South America.  Admittedly, our forebears in eastern Africa wouldn’t have had access to it 50,000 years ago.  After the plant has been processed, it’s certainly a highly refined product going against the grain of the paleo movement.  Furthermore, one of the stevia market leaders in U.S. (Truvia) is mixed with erythritol.  To help you feel better about the erythritol (a sugar alcohol), note that it is found naturally in some fruits.  Another stevia commercial product in the U.S. is Pure Via.

Dietitian Brenna at her Eating Simple blog reviewed sugar impostors in January, 2012.  She favored stevia over the others, at least for non-diabetics who were tempted.  Brenna also linked to a Mayo Clinic review of artificial sweeteners.

Note that sugar alcohols like erythritol have the potential to raise blood sugar levels.  They shouldn’t raise it as much as table sugar, however.  With regard to sugar alcohols, Dr. Richard K. Bernstein urges caution, if not total avoidance.  Use your meter to see how they effect you.

If you’re in the habit of using one or two teaspoons of honey to sweeten tea or coffee, you’re blood sugar levels should be more stable and manageable if you use stevia instead.  Dr. Bernstein gives the green light to stevia powder or liquid, along with saccharin tablets or liquid, aspartame tablets, and sucralose tablets, acesulfame-K, and neotame tablets.  Stevia is the only one close to “natural.”

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Posted in Supplements, Uncategorized

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Brenna Reviews Sugar Substitutes

Posted on May 10, 2012 | Comments Off on Brenna Reviews Sugar Substitutes
Too late now!

Paleo diet purists don’t eat artificial sweeteners.  Yet many adherents eat paleo-style only 80 or 90% of the time, partly because they miss their sweets.  Fruits and honey don’t always hit that sweet spot.

Dietitian Brenna at Eating Simple has a post on sugar substitutes, which I sometimes refer to as non-caloric sweeteners (not entirely accurate). She reviewed sucralose, saccharine, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium.

A few days later, she reviewed sugar alcohols.

Many who have a sweet tooth, including myself, use sugar substitutes such as sugar alcohols. Sometimes they affect blood sugar levels, although not as much as table sugar (sucrose).

Brenna links to a Mayo Clinic article on artificial sweeteners.  Also at the Mayo Clinic website is an article by Dr. Maria Collazo-Clavell on use of artificial sweeteners specifically by people with diabetes.  Like Brenna, she notes that sugar alcohols can raise blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.

Dr. Richard K. Bernstein says acceptable sugar substitutes for PWDs (people with diabetes) are:

  • saccharin tablets or liquid
  • aspartame tablets
  • acesulfame-K
  • stevia
  • sucralose tablets and liquid Splenda

He says to be wary of any of these in powdered form because they are usually then mixed with dextrose (glucose) or maltodextrin or other type of sugar to increase bulk. So blood sugars go up.

I never got excited enough to cover this topic in detail myself. Thanks, Brenna!

Steve Parker, M.D.

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