Both sugar and sugar substitutes have been shown to put people at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes – that is, until now. New research suggests one sugar substitute may not play a role in the cause of diabetes in healthy adults at all.
According to a new study published in the journal, Microbiome– led by researchers from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State University College of Medicine – says that saccharin is such an artificial sweetener that should no longer be a concern for diabetes prevention. The study was funded by The National Institutes of Health and The National Institute of Food and Agriculture. (Related: The one-vitamin doctors insist everyone should take now.)
Why do artificial sweeteners get a bad reputation in the first place?
Saccharin is one of the eight artificial sweeteners currently approved by the FDA, says Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN, FAND, award-winning nutritionist and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The best cookbook with 3 ingredients.
For example, if you sprinkled Sweet n ‘Low into your cup of coffee, you tried the hip-sweet fabric. Due to the increasing use of non-calorie artificial sweeteners (NCAS) and sugar alcohols – which are used in many keto-friendly and other sugar-free food products and beverages – research is being done has repeatedly questioned the safety of these alternative sweeteners.
Aside from the fact that many are turned off by the word “artificial” and are inherently skeptical about whether or not they can harm the body, there is also science that supports these fears.
“Some epidemiological and a handful of intervention studies have shown positive correlations between NCAS consumption and the risk of type 2 diabetes and other adverse metabolic outcomes,” George Kyriazis, MD, assistant professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology to the state Ohio. and senior author of the study, tells Eat it, not it!
According to Kyriazis, a high-profile study in particular, mainly in mice, showed that NCAS rapidly causes glucose intolerance – which causes high blood sugar levels – as indicated by direct and detrimental changes in the composition of certain intestinal bacteria.
“From a scientific point of view, however, these variable outcomes and ambiguities may reflect the differences in the NCAS used, the characteristics of the population studied and the associated diet, or other methodological considerations related to these reports,” Kyriazis explains. “So, our group set out to isolate these external variables and designed a study using both humans and mice investigating the independent effects of saccharin on the intestinal microbiota and glucose regulation.“
“In addition, the European Food Safety Authority, the FAO / WHO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, US FDA, and food standards Australia New Zealand and Health Canada all find saccharin, and the additional seven low-calorie saturations, to be safe,” says Amidor. .
What did this study find?
Researchers asked 46 healthy adults between 18 and 45 years old with a body mass index of 25 (the shell for the normal range) to take one of three capsules every day for two weeks. Participants took either the maximum acceptable daily amount of saccharin, lactisol (which prevents the tongue from tasting something sweet), saccharin with lactisol, or a placebo.
“We found no effects of saccharin supplementation on glucose regulation and had no changes in the intestinal microbiota of the participants,” says Kyriazis. ‘It is important to note here that the saccharin intake we used in our study is almost more than double the average intake of the most avid consumers of saccharin in the US“
In this context, the maximum acceptable daily amount of saccharin is 400 milligrams, which is much more than someone would regularly consume, as the artificial sweetener is significantly sweeter than table sugar.
“Because it’s 200-700 times sweeter than sugar, you just need a touch to deliver the same sweetness as sugar,” says Amidor. “This study looked at the maximum amount of saccharin, which is much greater than what any person would consume at one time.”
Kyriazis adds that it is also important to determine that their findings were not necessarily inconsistent with previous reports showing some detrimental metabolic effects of NCAS intake.
“Together, they emphasize that high NCAS consumption can have negative health outcomes that are accommodated by other physiological or dietary parameters,” he explains. “Consequently, more interventional studies are needed that concentrate on isolating and identifying the underlying physiological or lifestyle conditions that can be harmful to NCAS use.”
In short, healthy adults who occasionally eat food or drink liquor sweetened with saccharin should not worry too much about long-term side effects.
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