healthmedicinet

• Theories about cancer risks from sweeteners have not been proven
• Sweeteners such as stevia and xylitol found in 6,000 products
• Only sucrose poses the real risk for obesity and diabetes, say expert

By
Patrick Strudwick

PUBLISHED:

16:00 EST, 20 July 2013

|

UPDATED:

16:07 EST, 20 July 2013

Big business: Sweeteners such as Canderel offer guilt-free indulgence

Aspartame, xylitol and Stevia might sound like Doctor Who villains, but in fact they are sugar substitutes, or sweeteners.

Most of us have been consuming them in some form since the first of them, saccharin – dubbed ‘the poor man’s sugar’ – was formulated by German chemists more than 100 years  ago.

And fears about their potentially toxic effects date back almost as far.

Diabetes, cancer, strokes, seizures, hypertension, vomiting, dizziness – all have been cited as risks from sweetener consumption.

Yet none of these claims has stuck, and today sweeteners are a global industry worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

They are found in more than 6,000 products from drinks and desserts  to cakes, chewing gum and  ready meals.

Last
week a new study emerged, with Purdue University in Indiana claiming
that diet drinks containing the artificial sweetener aspartame (such as
Coke Zero) are no healthier than their full-sugar counterparts and could
contribute to weight gain, diabetes and heart disease. 

The
report author, Professor Susan Swithers, suggested this could be
because the chemical fails to trigger the ‘full’ feeling in our brain,
so we over-indulge elsewhere.

She
also proposed  a link between aspartame and metabolic syndrome, a
much-disputed term denoting a combination of symptoms that increases the
risk of heart disease and diabetes.

So
are there really dangers involved in swapping sugar with manufactured
alternatives? Have we all been misled? We asked  the experts:

WHAT ARE SWEETENERS?

Sugar substitutes are not all the same, and can be divided into  four distinct groups with different health properties.

Artificial
sweeteners (such as aspartame and saccharin) are produced from chemical
compounds that provide no calories, and are therefore referred to as
non-nutritive sweeteners.

Sugar alcohols (such as sorbitol and xylitol) are derived from substances in many vegetables and fruits such as cherries.

Novel
sweeteners are the most recent addition to the sugar alternatives and
mostly come from stevia extracts, a group of more than 200 shrubs and
herbs in the sunflower family.

Artificial, sugar alcohol and novel
sweeteners all taste many times – some hundreds of times – sweeter than
sugar, so the amounts needed to create the same level of sweetness are
dramatically lower.

I heart sweetener: Candy hearts made with Splenda, a sucralose sweetener, is not the danger rumours claim

The
final group is the natural sweeteners such as fruit juices (fructose),
agave nectar, honey and maple syrup, which are basically the same as
sugar in terms of calorie and carboyhydrate content.

Catherine Collins, principal
dietician at St George’s Hospital, London, strongly disputes the
findings of the Purdue University research.

‘There
are many, many factors involved in us feeling full or satisfied, and
indeed experiments have shown that chocolate cravings are noticeably
reduced the moment you eat the first piece, before the sugar even hits
your bloodstream, so this study proves nothing,’ she says.

It
is sugar (sucrose), with its high calorific content and need for
insulin to break it down, that poses the real risk for obesity and type 2
diabetes, Collins argues.

‘Sweeteners
have either zero calories or are very low in calories that aren’t
absorbed anyway, so are effectively zero calorie,’ she adds.

‘So
the suggestion that these products are no better at preventing weight
gain or diabetes, or that they in fact cause them, is unfounded, as the
accepted scientific evidence demonstrates.’

IS THERE A DIABETES RISK?

A
common fear remains, however, that sweeteners trick the body into
believing sugar is entering the blood system and therefore triggers an
insulin response, contributing to a diabetes risk.

‘If that were the case, then starchy foods such as bread, which does
not taste sweet, wouldn’t trigger insulin, when of course it does,’
replies Collins.

Zero calories – zero guilt? Coca-cola Zero is sweetened with Aspartame and acesulfame potassium

Diabetes UK says all zero and low-calorie sweeteners – the first three groups – are safe for diabetics. The guidance for natural sweeteners is the same as for sugar.

THE CANCER MYTH

The spectre of sweeteners as carcinogens first surfaced in the 1970s when saccharin (found in Sweet’N Low) was discovered in one study  to raise the risk of bladder cancer  in rats.

A wealth of later research in humans found no link. Equally, aspartame, the most commonly used sweetener, was blamed in 1996 as the cause  of the spike in brain tumours in Americans between 1975 and 1992.

Subsequent studies again found no relationship.

The sweetener sodium cyclamate was banned in the US in 1969 after a study found that rats fed the equivalent of 250 cans of diet drinks  a day developed bladder tumours.

Further studies failed to replicate these findings, but the ban remains. Sodium cyclamate is deemed safe in Europe and 50 countries worldwide – but is not routinely found in UK products.

Dr Paul Mulholland, an oncologist at University College London who specialises in brain tumours, says: ‘I am not aware of any risk factors for brain cancer apart from radiation.’

SO ARE THEY SAFE?

Collins
says: ‘The problem with many of these studies looking at links between
cancers, seizures, hypertension and sweeteners – and the way they are
reported – is that  too often people confuse correlation with causation.

‘For example, an
analysis of Mail on Sunday readers would probably find that they have
higher levels of bowel cancer than people in Africa, but that’s because
this group lives in a Western country with a particular diet, not
because reading a newspaper causes cancer.’

The concerns about sugar substitutes are, she argues, based on a misunderstanding of the wider data.

One
such misunderstanding is that aspartame is harmful because the body
breaks it down into toxic substances – methanol and formaldehyde. But
they’re not absorbed and the amounts are negligible: a can of Diet Coke
produces 20mg of methanol, half the amount produced by the same quantity
of fruit juice .

‘The fact is, sweeteners are safe,’ adds Collins. ‘Both the American Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority approve them. Those who cast doubt about their safety can often have a vested interest in doing so.’

A major review was conducted in 2006 by the EFSA, which concluded: ‘Extensive scientific research .??.??. together with a history of more than 20 years of safe use, support the conclusion that aspartame is safe.’

WATCH OUT IF YOU HAVE IBS

Doctors and dieticians warn that there can be unfortunate side effects to some sweeteners. ‘Sugar alcohols in particular – the xylitols and sorbitols – are not absorbed by the gut and will in larger doses, and especially in people who already have irritable bowel syndrome, cause bloating and diarrhoea,’ says consultant gastroenterologist Neil Ikin, from London’s Homerton hospital.

Collins, however, recommends such sugar alcohols, which are often found in chewing gums, as they have consistently been shown to help fight plaque and tooth decay  by preventing bacteria in the  mouth from forming the acids that attack teeth.

The message, it seems, is clear: sweeteners won’t cause any ill effects. Just as long as you don’t have IBS.

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Aspartame is slowly being substituted for other sweeteners. It is a dangerous neuro toxin and should have been abolished a long time ago!

–

ANON
,

Manchester,
20/7/2013 23:14

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Don’t believe a word of this. I know first hand that aspartame causes kidney cancer – THERE IS NO CURE!

–

nick
,

sheffield,
20/7/2013 23:12

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And who funded these study’s – wouldn’t touch sweeteners with a barge pole!!!

–

J-O
,

Cornwall,
20/7/2013 23:10

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Aspartame is so dangerous it should not be used in anything a human digests.

–

Karen
,

Southampton, England,
20/7/2013 23:06

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This has been a public information story sponsored by Ajinomoto. Do not adjust your interwebz.

–

Roscoe
,

UK,
20/7/2013 23:01

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Aspartame ….. fecal matter from bacteria. Nuff said!

–

Crystal
,

UK,
20/7/2013 23:00

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They are poison.

–

TicToc
,

London,
20/7/2013 22:59

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Yes but with a pinch of sat they may be.

–

chinnwin
,

Northampton,
20/7/2013 22:57

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Were the experts who have come out with this being paid by the companies using these sweeteners. Aspartame is really bad, there are over 92 side effects associated with Aspartame according to experts, just put Aspartame into google and do your own research but check many different sources to make your own mind up. Governments that allow these things to be consumed by people allow companies to use there own scientists to test the safety of these products, even if the governments own scientists say it’s unsafe the government will still allow it because the companies pay a lot of tax (or they’re supposed to).

–

Who
,

Cares, United Kingdom,
20/7/2013 22:55

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Of course believe everything the tabloids tell you. Aspartame eats holes in your brain. How much did they pay you to run this propaganda?

–

JJNYC
,

NYC,
20/7/2013 22:54

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