A study detects risks in an artificial sweetener and warns of the importance of better studying its effects

Excessive consumption of sugar is related to diseases such as obesity or diabetes, but sweet foods are more attractive.

To have the taste of sugar without its harmful effects on health, the food industry has replaced it with various artificial sweeteners, which reduce caloric intake while maintaining flavor.

However, in recent years, studies have appeared indicating that its consumption is not safe, and new analyzes are being carried out to properly assess the risks and benefits of these sugar substitutes.

A 2019 report commissioned by the World Health Organization concluded that sweeteners are not much better than sugar, finding only slight weight loss as a positive effect.

In 2022, a study published in the journal

warned that substances to sweeten food such as saccharin could alter the balance of microbes in our gut and affect glucose tolerance.

Today, the magazine

publishes a study carried out by an international team of scientists that suggests that the consumption of one of these artificial sweeteners, erythritol, is related to an increased risk of heart attacks or strokes.

The team of researchers, led by Stanley Hazen, a researcher at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio (USA), collected information from 1,157 people who were being followed for cardiovascular problems.

In a study, which lasted three years, they found that the presence of erythritol was associated with an increased risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke during that period.

This same association was observed in other patients who were being followed up for cardiac problems in different institutions in Europe and the US. In addition, experiments were carried out in animals, which confirmed that erythritol favored the formation of thrombi, and a small study was carried out. experiment, with eight healthy patients, in whom a similar effect was also detected.

The authors note that although regulatory agencies consider them safe, more quality trials are needed to better understand the long-term effects of consuming artificial sweeteners.

"Despite the increasing incorporation of artificial sweeteners into the food chain, cardiovascular risks have rarely been investigated," they state.

As limitations to their results, they acknowledge that the people who were part of the larger study already had previous cardiovascular problems and it would be necessary to check if these effects are seen in healthy people in the long term.

Dolores del Castillo, a researcher at the CSIC's Food Sciences Research Institute (CIAL), believes that these results do not justify, at least for now, considering erythritol dangerous.

“It is necessary to do longer-term studies, including more healthy people,” she says.

In addition, continues Del Castillo, "the amount of sweetener used in the study, 30 grams per day, seems to me much higher than what most people can consume in Spain."

This aspect of the study was also criticized by Gunter Kuhnle, Professor of Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Reading (UK), speaking to the Science Media Center.

Santiago Navas, director of the precision nutrition line at the Nutrition Research Center of the University of Navarra, believes that "the conclusions of the study, which is of good quality, are somewhat daring."

"Relationships between the consumption of sweeteners and increased metabolic risk have been established for years, but the results are not conclusive and more long-term studies are necessary."

Navas also points out that it is not easy "to link the consumption of a specific ingredient or food with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease" and stresses the need to assess the effects of sweeteners on health by comparing them with the use of sugar.

That is what they are doing with the European SWEET project, a consortium of 29 institutions, in which Navas and his team participate,

Despite considering that, as the regulatory agencies affirm, sweeteners are safe, Navas believes that "we have to accustom the population to not eating so sweet" because it is a "habit acquired over generations that affects global health."

Del Castillo also recalls that experts now "recommend not adding sweeteners and getting used to less intense sweetness and the natural flavor of the products."

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