Questions about the impact of artificial sweeteners have taken on new urgency in an era when manufacturers’ desire to cut costs, along with a wave of sugar taxes around the world, has led food companies to replace sugar with sweeteners by the thousands of varieties of beverages, confectionery, bakery and processed foods.
In July, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the WHO, added to the climate of concern by concluding that a widely used sweetener, aspartame, is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
Jotham Suez, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, says that in the past it was “difficult to say that sweeteners are causing these conditions, rather than that people with a predisposition to these conditions are consuming sweeteners.”
However, he pointed to a new study he conducted last year stating that four different sweeteners each altered the gut bacteria in those who consumed them. Therefore, “the gut microbiome plays numerous functions in metabolic health and cancer formation, so this is a red flag.”
Duane Mellor, a nutrition expert at Aston Medical School in the UK, questions how significant the changes seen in Suez’s study are. He points out that, in most ways, the test subjects’ microbiome status returned to normal fairly quickly after they stopped consuming sweeteners.
According to the Financial Times, many studies have produced conflicting evidence, with some showing that sweeteners can have a negative impact on health, but others suggesting a neutral or even beneficial impact. There are artificial sweeteners in over 3,000 foods – and they’re cheaper than sugar.
Experts at the Food Research Center of Chile found that after the country introduced rules imposing stricter rules on the advertising and labeling of foods high in saturated fat and sugar, purchases of drinks containing sweeteners increased.
In the United States, not only adults, but also children have increased their consumption of sweeteners, especially sucralose. A “potentially worrying” development, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina.
Despite uncertainties about the effects of these substitutes, the sugar crackdown has been a boon for companies that make sweeteners for food manufacturers, such as Tate & Lyle and Ingredion, along with Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, which are better known for their processing and marketing of raw materials.
A common justification for sweeteners is that they are indispensable when it comes to managing type 2 diabetes and obesity. Compared to sugar, low-calorie sweeteners provide better blood sugar and insulin responses.
“At a time when obesity and noncommunicable diseases remain major global health challenges, low- or no-calorie sweeteners offer consumers a choice of safe alternatives to reduce sugar and calorie intake and the risk of tooth decay,” said The International Sweeteners Association.
From a public health perspective, sweetener advocates say it’s unrealistic to expect people to avoid highly sweetened foods and drinks altogether.
Manufacturers insist that, from a food safety perspective, there is no difference between “natural” and “artificial” low-calorie sweeteners – the only difference is consumer attitude.
2023-10-01 12:03:29
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