- Tufts University study analyzed 21 randomized clinical trials examining long-term effects of non-nutritive sweeteners.
- Low-calorie sweeteners alter gut microbiota composition and function, raising health concerns.
- Researchers recommend caution and further study before assuming sugar substitutes are safe alternatives.
A study published Thursday in Current Atherosclerosis Report suggested sugar substitutes may be harmful in different ways than the substance they’re replacing.
Read more Opinion: Communities will come together for America’s potluck
According to American Chemical Society, the first artificial sweetener, saccharin, was discovered in 1879. Since then, many sugar substitutes have been developed and commercialized to mimic the taste of sugar, minus the calories.
The researchers from Tufts University aimed to look at the long-term effects of these non-nutritive sweeteners, and reported that what they found “raises concern.”
A study that stands out
The team analyzed 21 randomized clinical trials to see how participants’ bodies reacted to both artificial and natural low-calorie sweeteners. The examples given of artificial sweeteners included sucralose, aspartame and saccharin, while the natural sweeteners mentioned were stevia and erythritol. The study indicated there were other unspecified sweeteners as well.
“What makes our analysis notable is that by focusing on non-caloric comparators, we better isolated the direct physiological effects of the sweeteners themselves, not the calories they replace,” Meng Wang, the first author in the study and a research assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, said in an article from TuftsNow. The study identified those non-caloric comparators as water and a placebo.
Read more This American could help eliminate the U.S. from the World Cup on Wednesday
Not-so-sweet discoveries
The researchers found that “certain low-calorie sweeteners were shown to alter both the composition and the function of the gut microbiota,” according to the news release.
It also said, “Consuming non-nutritive sweeteners is linked to a higher risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases” because of the trend between higher non-nutritive sweetener consumption and worsened insulin sensitivity.
The researchers concluded non-nutritive sweeteners’ impact on metabolic health “remains unclear and controversial.” The observations “are particularly subject to reverse causation,” since people who already have higher metabolic risk may be the ones using non-nutritive sweeteners, per the report. Whether these substitutes cause metabolic risk or metabolic risk leads to the use of low-calorie sweeteners is hard to determine.
Overall, the consensus was that more research should be done.
“Until we know more, caution is needed. If you’re replacing large amounts of added sugar in your diet, such as in multiple servings of soda, these low-calorie sweeteners may be a better alternative. But we can’t simply assume they are safe and innocuous, and avoiding them whenever possible appears a prudent choice,” Dariush Mozaffarian, study senior author, cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute, said in the TuftsNow piece.