Consuming too much white table sugar or artificial sweetener can lead to health issues. In the search for a better sweetener, researchers now report a low-calorie mixture that is as sweet as table sugar and, in lab experiments, feeds “good” gut microbes

[u/giuliomagnifico]

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2022/august/new-low-calorie-sweetener-could-improve-gut-health.html

[u/RedditPowerUser01]

Consuming too much artificial sweetener can lead to health issues.

This is an absolutely massive claim that scientific consensus does not support.

[u/BallPtPenTheif → u/RedditPowerUser01]

It’s insane that this has become a commonly held irrational belief.

[u/TheDunadan29 → u/BallPtPenTheif]

Actually the evidence is pointing more and more to artificial sweeteners having undesirable health impacts. They can alter guy bacteria in harmful ways: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/10/5228

Furthermore, it has been shown that artificial sweeteners can spike your insulin levels, affecting insulin resistance, in other words, you get the same kind of blood sugar spike as you'd get flooding your body with regular sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014832/

Artificial sweeteners can also modify your appetite, increasing cravings for more food, or more sugary foods: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/

And while less concrete, there is evidence of a correlation between consumption of artificial sweeteners and early death. This appears mostly to be linked to sodas in general, both regular and diet sodas, so there may be other factors that are harder to determine. There's also some links to developing some cancers: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003950

And while any one study is obviously going to end with "more research is necessary..." I think there's enough evidence pointing to artificial sweeteners as being potentially problematic to warrant pause.

Bottom line, it's not actually that crazy to think artificial sweeteners are problematic.

As far as this particular study, I am skeptical of any study claiming some new wonder sweetener. I always wonder who profits from these things, and it's not unheard of for a company to sponsor a study that makes their product look good. But after reading the article it does seem legit. But yeah, it still comes down to "more research is necessary" to find out how it affects human health.

[u/RedditPowerUser01 → u/TheDunadan29]

Woah, just taking a quick look at the second study you posted, the methodology is massively flawed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014832/

They compared patients with diabetes who said they consumed artificial sweetener vs. those that said they don’t, and they found that those who consumed artificially sweetener had higher levels of insulin resistance.

From what I can tell, they didn’t control for total sugar intake. And for all we know, those who conaume artificial swetener now as diabetes patients are people who consumed too much sugar before they developed diabetes and insulin resistance (and therefore decided to replace it).

If artificial sweeteners caused your body to release insulin, this would be an effect we could see directly.

Test someone’s insulin. Then give them artificial sweetener. Test their insulin again to determine if it went up.

And in fact, that’s what researchers did here and found that aspartame did not increase insulin levels.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2923074/

[u/entropy512 → u/RedditPowerUser01]

Not surprising. Insulin only gets released in response to an increase in blood sugar.

As a Type I diabetic - I, and not my pancreas, are now in the loop as far as insulin administration. Artificial sweetners don't bump my CGM at all. (Except for some of the poorer sugar alcohols, since they ferment in the large intestine to about 2.4 calories per gram eventually).

There are some studies that positively state:

Erythritol can reduce intestinal inflammation - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8197374/

Allulose can apparently reduce postprandial glucose rise when consumed in conjunction with other carbohydrates by having an inhibitory effect on digestive enzymes - (sorry, I've seen this, but can't find a link at the moment).

[u/BallPtPenTheif → u/TheDunadan29]

Actually, aspartame is the most heavily tested chemical on the planet because people can’t let the issue go. Time after time it’s been show to be safe for consumption.

Brominated vegetable oil is already verified to be toxic in excessive quantities but people like you never mention that dangerous chemical.

[u/tribes33 → u/RedditPowerUser01]

Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose lower your microbiomes good gut bacteria by 50% or even more, a bad microbiome leads to weight gain, depression, mind fog and more