Sucralose And Aspartame: Health Effects Of Non Sugar Sweeteners
- Leonie Jones
- Jul 21, 2023
- 4 min read
SUCRALOSE and aspartame
Sucralose was discovered in 1976 and it is a disaccharide made from sucrose, it is approximately 600 times sweeter than sucrose and is used under the brand name Splenda (Ahmad, Friel and Mackay, 2020).
Aspartame Was discovered in 1965, it is an artificial, low-calorie non-saccharide sweetener that is used to sweeten food and drink products (Ahmad, Friel and Mackay, 2020).
General sweeteners warnings:
The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new guideline on non-sugar sweeteners (NSS), which recommends against the use of NSS to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence which suggests that the use of NSS does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. Results of the review also suggest that there may be potential undesirable effects from long-term use of NSS, such as an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults.
Potential effects:
Are glucose and insulin affected?
The amount of research that evaluates the effects of repeated daily exposure to sucralose or aspartame on glucose metabolism is far fewer than the number of studies evaluating a single dose (Ahmad, Friel and Mackay, 2020). There are varying results on the effects of sucralose and aspartame. For example; 2 trials showed that the consumption of aspartame affected glucose as well as insulin. Another study also found there to be higher glucose concentrations after sucralose consumption, on the other hand, many studies reviewed found no change. There is conflicting data due to the protocols used (Ahmad, Friel and Mackay, 2020). There is one study which found that for people with obesity who did not normally eat artificial sweeteners, NSS raised both insulin and blood sugar levels (Pepino et al., 2013). More research is needed.
The body may see sucralose as toxic.
There is evidence from an animal study in male rats that sucralose ingestion for 12 weeks increased the expression of specific intestinal efflux transporters which are involved in drug detoxification, this suggests the body might be treating sucralose as a toxin that needs to be removed from the body (Abou-Donia et al., 2008b). Long-term inflammation in the body can contribute to various health issues, we need more data to find out if sucralose causes the same changes in the human microbiome the way it does in animals.
May affect our gut bacteria
Our gut is home to a community of helpful bacteria which has various jobs that include helping the function of our immune system as well as digestion. Abu et al found that sucralose exerted numerous adverse effects such as the reduction of beneficial gut bacteria that was sustained over the 12-week period (Abou-Donia et al., 2008b). Another study of 8 weeks that looked at mice also found a low dose of aspartame to result in dysbiosis of the gut bacteria creating imbalances (Palmnäs et al., 2014).
Effect body mass?
A study looked at rats divided into two experiments that focused on the effects of both sucralose and aspartame, they found that body weight and fat mass significantly increased following injection of aspartame within 7 weeks due to an increase in energy efficiency, similarly, sucralose displayed these results to a lesser extent. The results concluded that adverse effects on body measures were identified within 7 weeks (Ragi et al., 2021). A 2017 meta-analysis of research on artificial sweeteners found no clear evidence of weight loss benefits for artificial sweeteners in randomised clinical trials, and they reported that cohort studies associate artificial sweeteners with “increases in weight and waist circumference, and higher incidence of obesity, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular events.” (Azad et al., 2017).
It is important to keep in mind, although the evidence is not set, it's a good idea to find natural ways to cut back on sugar, rather than turning to potentially harmful sweeteners.
Natural alternatives to aspartame
If you want to avoid products containing aspartame or sucralose, natural NNS alternatives exist. You can try searching for products containing, or sweetening with: (Keep in mind that these should still be consumed in moderation)
References:
Ragi, M.-E.E., El-Haber, R., El-Masri, F. and Obeid, O.A. (2021). The effect of aspartame and sucralose intake on body weight measures and blood metabolites: role of their form (solid and/or liquid) of ingestion. British Journal of Nutrition, pp.1–9. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007114521003238.
Ahmad, S.Y., Friel, J.K. and Mackay, D.S. (2020). Effect of sucralose and aspartame on glucose metabolism and gut hormones. Nutrition Reviews, 78(9), pp.725–746. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuz099.
Abou-Donia, M.B., El-Masry, E.M., Abdel-Rahman, A.A., McLendon, R.E. and Schiffman, S.S. (2008). Splenda alters gut microflora and increases intestinal p-glycoprotein and cytochrome p-450 in male rats. Journal of toxicology and environmental health. Part A, [online] 71(21), pp.1415–29. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/15287390802328630.
Palmnäs, M.S.A., Cowan, T.E., Bomhof, M.R., Su, J., Reimer, R.A., Vogel, H.J., Hittel, D.S. and Shearer, J. (2014). Low-Dose Aspartame Consumption Differentially Affects Gut Microbiota-Host Metabolic Interactions in the Diet-Induced Obese Rat. PLoS ONE, 9(10), p.e109841. doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109841.
Pepino, M.Y., Tiemann, C.D., Patterson, B.W., Wice, B.M. and Klein, S. (2013). Sucralose affects glycemic and hormonal responses to an oral glucose load. Diabetes care, [online] 36(9), pp.2530–5. doi:https://doi.org/10.2337/dc12-2221.
Azad, M.B., Abou-Setta, A.M., Chauhan, B.F., Rabbani, R., Lys, J., Copstein, L., Mann, A., Jeyaraman, M.M., Reid, A.E., Fiander, M., MacKay, D.S., McGavock, J., Wicklow, B. and Zarychanski, R. (2017). Nonnutritive sweeteners and cardiometabolic health: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and prospective cohort studies. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 189(28), pp.E929–E939. doi:https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.161390.
U.S. Right to Know. (2019). Is the ‘Diet’ Coke Chemical Making You Fat? [online] Available at: https://usrtk.org/sweeteners/aspartame-weight-gain/.
Comments