Currently browsing posts about: Artificial-sweeteners

I’m in Mexico City and María Verónica Flores Bello, who teaches at a university here, gave me this photo taken at a Selecto supermarket.  It, she says, is Coca-Cola’s “brand new green Coca Cola, sweetened with stevia and sugar, as healthy and fresh as eating vegetables….”

Here’s the label:

Soon to a supermarket near you?  Only if Mexicans buy it.

I’ll explain what these labels mean on Monday,

Happy weekend.

The big nutrition scare last week was the study in Nature finding that in mice and, maybe, humans, artificial sweeteners mess up the microbiome and make some people even more intolerant of glucose.

The authors conclude that their results call for a reassessment of massive use of artificial sweeteners.

The study is complicated and difficult to read but the Wall Street Journal has a nice summary.  It explains why the study is getting so much attention:

The new Nature study marks a significant advance because it brings together two separate areas of research—the role of sweeteners in raising blood sugar levels, and the complex workings of the vast colonies of bacteria that inhabit the gut. Individuals can have differing bacterial colonies in their gut, meaning people respond differently to what they consume.

The study involved several experiments.  These found:

• Mice fed saccharin, sucralose, or aspartame had significantly higher blood-glucose levels than mice whose diet included sugar, or just water.
• Mice with sterilized digestive tracts, who were given bacterial transplants from artificial-sweetener-fed mice, displayed higher blood sugar levels than those receiving bacterial transplants from sugar-fed mice.
• People who typically use artificial sweeteners have different kinds of bacteria in their intestines than those who do not.  They also are more glucose intolerant.
• Seven volunteers fed artificial sweeteners for four days displayed higher blood-sugar levels as well as altered populations of bacteria in their gut.

The Wall Street Journal quotes the Calorie Control Council (the trade association of makers of artificial sweeteners).  The CCC said:

The results from the mouse experiments may not apply to humans, while the human experiments had a small sample size. It said further research was needed.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for artificial sweeteners, I think the Calorie Control Council has a point.

The excellent report by Kenneth Chang in the New York Times explains why.

At present, the scientists cannot explain how the sweeteners affect the bacteria or why the three different molecules of saccharin, aspartame and sucralose result in similar changes in the glucose metabolism.

Chang ends with this:

Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health who did not take part in the study, called it interesting but far from conclusive and added that given the number of participants, “I think the validity of the human study is questionable.”

Here’s why I’m not fond of artificial sweeteners:

• They taste bad (to me)
• They have no demonstrated effectiveness in helping people lose or maintain weight.
• They are artificial, and violate my rule to “never eat anything artificial.”

Do they mess up the microbiome and cause glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome?

That would be fascinating, but I’m reserving judgment pending further research.

In the meantime, I’ll take sugar—in moderation, of course.

FoodNavigator.com reports two new studies on artificial sweeteners.

The first report says that artificially sweetened sodas do not lead to increased sugar or calorie consumption.

Our study study does not provide evidence to suggest that a short-term consumption of DBs [diet beverages], compared with water, increases preferences for sweet foods and beverages.

So how come diet sodas don’t seem to help people maintain weight, on average?  We still don’t know.

The second report is about a study that links diet sodas to type 2 diabetes.   In a study following 66,000 women for 14 years, it found both sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and artificially sweetened beverage consumption to be associated with increased type-2 diabetes risk. 

How come?  We still don’t know.

One thing seems pretty clear from such studies: diet drinks don’t appear to do much good for most people and aren’t any better for health than regular sodas.

Water, anyone?

Last week, I wrote about the dairy industry’s petition to avoid having to follow FDA rules about labeling artificial sweeteners on the front of milk cartons.

Cara Wilking, Senior Staff Attorney at the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University points out that the Sugar Association, the trade association for producers of cane and beet sugar, is right on top of this issue.

To assist consumers in making informed choices about what is sweetening the products they purchase, the Sugar Association petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting changes to labeling regulations on sugar and alternative sweeteners.

In this petition we asked that artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols be identified on the front of the package along with the amounts, similar to what is required in Canada.

If it is important to you to know if the product you purchase contains artificial sweeteners, let your congressional representatives know that FDA needs to take action on this important consumer issue.

The Sugar Association, obviously, represents the producers of cane and beet sugar. It wants to sell more sugar.  It doesn’t like artificial sweeteners much.  [Recall: it doesn’t like me much either—go to Media and scroll down to the bottom to read the Sugar Association’s letter threatening to sue me].

In contrast, the dairy industry wants to sell more milk.  Sweetened milk, no matter with what, sells to kids.  School kids are a big market for the dairy industry.  This market, however, is not doing well these days, according to the dairy industry’s August 2012 School Channel Survey.

Schools and processors are realizing 59% of current potential…Milk potential stands at 6.29 milks per student each week…Actual usage is 3.74 milks per student each week.  Elementary schools: 70% of potential being realized, down 1 point Secondary schools: 50%, down 1 point over last year.

Achieving ‘a milk with every meal’ translates into nearly 300 million incremental gallons….

Of course artificial sweeteners should be prominently labeled.  The Sugar Association has this one right.

Whatever your opinion, you can file comments at www.regulations.gov. Search for docket number FDA-2009-P-0147.

The FDA is collecting opinions on a dairy industry petition to change the standard of identity for milk.  The dairy industry wants to be able to add artificial sweeteners to chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk without saying so on the front panel of the package.

Why is the dairy industry doing this?  Because it believes that:

Labels such as “reduced calorie” or “no added sugar” are a turn-off to kids who might otherwise reach for flavored milk with non-nutritive (artificial) sweeteners at the school cafeteria or from the grocery store cooler.

As if kids should be reaching for milk with artificial sweeteners.  

The FDA wants to hear from YOU about this.  It wants your comments on these questions (my translation):

• If the label just says Chocolate Milk, will consumers understand that the milk is artificially sweetened?
• Are descriptions like “reduced calorie” really unattractive to children?
• Will it be hard for consumers to figure out whether a product contains sugar or an artificial sweetener?

Go to www.regulations.gov. Search for docket number FDA-2009-P-0147. 

Artificial sweeteners are a terrific example of why correlation does not necessarily mean causation (see previous post).

Their use has increased in parallel—is highly correlated—with rising rates of obesity.  But could artificial sweeteners cause obesity?

Unlikely as that idea may seem, Brazilian researchers thought  it was worth careful investigation.

They did a preliminary study of sweeteners and weight gain in rats.

They report: although total calorie intake was similar in all rats, the rats fed artificial sweeteners gained more weight than those fed sucrose (table sugar).

The investigators fed the rats yogurt containing either sucrose, aspartame, or saccharin along with unlimited amounts of rat chow.

The rats must not have liked the taste of the artificial sweeteners because they ate more of the sucrose-containing yogurt than the kind with artificial sweeteners. They compensated for less yogurt by eating more rat chow.

Although saccharin and aspartame promoted relatively fewer calories from yogurt intake when compared to sucrose, increases in calories from chow intake effectively compensated for decreases in calories from yogurt, in such a way that there was a similar total caloric intake among all groups after the 12-week period of the experiment.

As they put it, “Possible explanations for weight-gain in saccharin and aspartame groups without increasing energy intake are still widely speculative.”  They suggest that artificial sweeteners might induce:

• Reduced energy expenditure.
• Excessive insulin secretion.
• Increased fluid intake and retention.

What are we to make of this?

This is a small, preliminary study using only 10 rats in each of the three groups.

The differences in calorie intake were small and small calorie differences are difficult to measure.

Bottom line: this is an interesting result that needs to be repeated with greater numbers of rats and even more careful calorie measurements.

Reference: Fernanda de Matos Feijó et al.  Saccharin and aspartame, compared with sucrose, induce greater weight gain in adult Wistar rats, at similar total caloric intake levels.  Appetite 2012; 60:203-207. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2012.10.009

FoodNavigator-USA.com did a special edition “Where next for natural sweeteners?”  “Special editions are collections of previously published articles on topics of interest to this newsletter’s food industry readers.

Why do this?  The holy grail of food technology is to find a no-calorie sweetener that tastes as good as sugar, has no bitter aftertaste, and can be marketed as “natural” because it’s extracted from plants. Examples: Stevia extracted from leaves Monk fruit sweetener.

As with high fructose corn syrup, not everyone considers these sweeteners to be natural since they have to go through chemical processing steps.

Stevia is extracted from leaves with ethanol.  Whether this process can be considered natural is currently under debate in Europe.  Some European regulators prefer “extracted from a plant source.”

Here are some of the articles.  For the complete collection, click here.

Monk fruit sweetener firm: ‘We hear daily that people are looking for alternatives to stevia’

It might not have garnered as much publicity as stevia, but monk fruit (luo han guo) “has found a niche within the all-natural market but will hit mass market sooner than stevia in this space”, according to one leading supplier… Read

Tate & Lyle: Monk fruit sweetener attracting most interest in dairy and beverages

Dairy and beverages are proving the most popular application areas for monk fruit sweetener Purefruit, says Tate & Lyle… Read

Different processes, lower cost, better taste: Is stevia still on track for mainstream success?Taste issues and high cost repeatedly have been raised as possible obstacles to widespread acceptance of stevia-derived sweeteners, but one of the many new suppliers entering the market claims that these are no longer the hurdles they once were… Read

Steviol glycosides are not ‘all-natural’, says new class action lawsuitA class action lawsuit filed in California this week argues that steviol glycosides should not be considered natural, owing to the “chemical processing” sometimes used to extract them from the stevia leaf… Read

Stevia buyers beware: There are some ‘awful’ extracts out there…

While traders “jumping in and out of the stevia marketplace” are disrupting prices and standards by peddling some “awful” extracts, high-quality stevia suppliers in it for the long-haul will ultimately prosper, according to one leading player… Read

Stevia in snacks and baked goods – stealth, competition, and potential

While stevia is beginning to take off in a number of baked goods and snack categories in the US, Asian and South American markets, some other emerging ‘natural’ sweeteners look ready to take it on in the segment, claims Datamonitor… Read

Naturally-positioned sweeteners to lead market growth: Report

The US alternative sweeteners market will grow by 3.3% a year to reach about $1.4bn in 2015 – and naturally positioned sweeteners like stevia and agave nectar will lead the way, claims a new report from market research organization Freedonia… Read

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the agency that rules on health claims and food safety, is reviewing the safety of the artificial sweetener aspartame.  It has just released the 112 studies it reviewed in the 1980s along with hundreds of studies submitted more recently.  Its re-evaluation is expected in 2012.

Despite many complaints to the contrary, the FDA has consistently ruled that aspartame is safe at levels currently consumed.  With release of the EFSA studies, people concerned about this issue can review the data and draw their own conclusions.

It will be interesting to see EFSA’s review when it appears.