The Boogeyman of Nutrition: ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS

Time to go over everyone’s favorite health topic to argue about, good old artificial sweeteners (A.S). Thanks to the mainstream media, the general population believe that A.S cause cancer, destroy gut health and result in more weight gain than just having the full calorie version. This is largely due to the media misrepresenting studies, because yes — all of these negative effects have been ‘shown’ in various studies (ill get to those later) and there is a huge, very profitable industry that relies on sugar consumption to continue.

Now I don’t want this post to come across as biased towards A.S, but since the current view is so negatively skewed in general, it may appear as though I fully support and advocate A.S. This is not the case. I rarely consume them in my own diet (for reasons ill get to later), and when programming for clients it is completely dependent on the individual if they consume A.S or not. So let’s dispel some bullshit shall we?

‘Artificial Sweeteners cause cancer’

An example that people will often use against artificial sweeteners is the aspartame mice study — where it was found to cause cancer. On the surface this looks like aspartame should be made illegal and people should stop consuming it immediately. The problem is that the quantity given to these mice to cause cancer was WAY higher than anyone would ever actually consume. The lowest dose given was 2,000 PPM, which roughly translates to an adult male consuming 20 cans of aspartame sweetened beverage every day OF THEIR ENTIRE LIFE. Even then the cancer risk only increased, there was no guarantee of developing cancer even at the highest dose of 36,000 PPM (Soffritti M et al. 2010).

The media would take this study and report that ‘artificial sweeteners cause cancer’ without giving any other information, and because it comes from a ‘trusted news source’ people believe it. By the same token, this does not prove that A.S (aspartame in this case) are completely safe — only that in mice they do not increase risk of cancer unless consumed at extremely high doses.

For a study that was done on humans we can check out the journal of public health nutrition. This one looked at the sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drink intake of 41,504 individuals from 1990 to 2007. The results found significant correlation with the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages to obesity related cancers, but no correlation with the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages (Hodge MA. 2018).

‘Artificial Sweeteners result in more weight gain in the long run’

The data we have to suggest this is observational and causative, but that hasn’t stopped people from blasting this one all over the news and social media. ‘The more artificial sweeteners you consume the more likely you are to be overweight/obese’. This is usually the ‘conclusion’ drawn from these studies, but if you take one thing away from this post I hope its this: Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Many other factors are at play, most often an individual starts consuming more A.S once they are already overweight in a bid to lose weight. However, in these observational studies all the data shows is one more overweight person who consumes higher than average artificial sweeteners, when in reality they became overweight the same way as anyone else — by being in an energy surplus.

In actual studies that control for calories and other conflicting factors we see either no change in weight, or weight loss as a result of switching to lower calorie versions of the same food. A recent meta-analysis (a study that looks at all other available studies on a certain topic) found that when individuals switched to A.S foods it resulted in a significantly reduced consumption of calories — even when eating ad libitum (Gallagher et al. 2021).

‘Artificial Sweeteners destroy the gut microbiome’

First off, A.S are not antibiotics — they will never ‘wipe out’ your entire microbiome. However, this area does start becoming a little grey in terms of potential negative effects. The main issue with A.S effect on gut health is that we simply don’t know enough about the gut microbiome and its specific reactions to different substances. New research is being published every month on the topic and our knowledge is growing but at this stage this is the primary reason I chose to limit my intake of A.S. The reason I chose this ‘better safe than sorry’ approach but still occasionally program A.S into the diet of my clients is very simple. I have no issue maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle without consuming A.S, but for many people it can be a primary reason they are able to lose weight and keep it off. Having a zero sugar soda each day or swapping table sugar for sucralose can quell sweet cravings and make an individual feel like they get a daily treat, which can greatly increase adherence in the long run.

Of course, there is the other side of the argument. Be mindful that some people can have cravings ‘triggered’ by consuming artificial sweeteners — particularly 0 sugar beverages. This can cause cravings of other sweet food which inevitably will contain full energy sugars. If this is you then the obvious advice would be to avoid the trigger, at least in the short term.

Hopefully this post has given you some good information and made you consider that this is a nuanced topic like most in nutrition. Again, it comes down to personal preference and individual specification. A.S will not kill you, and they are unlikely to cause any negative effects at all when consumed in modest amounts — providing they don’t trigger cravings for sweet food.

As always you can get in touch at https://www.formativenutrition.net/contact where I offer personalized, online nutrition programs to suit any goal — so feel free to ask any questions you like if you are interested. Thanks for Reading.

References:

· Gallagher AM, et al. 2021. Low-calorie sweeteners in the human diet: scientific evidence, recommendations, challenges and future needs. A symposium report from the FENS 2019 conference. Journal of Nutritional Science. 10.

· Soffritti M, et al. 2010. Aspartame administered in feed, beginning prenatally through life span, induces cancers of the liver and lung in male Swiss mice. American Journal of Industrial Medicine. 53(12).

· Hodge MA, et al. 2018. Consumption of sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks and risk of obesity-related cancers. Public Health Nutrition. 21(9).