Artificial Sweeteners: Yes or No?

The truth about artificial sweeteners ⬇️

In case you haven’t heard, there was this huge study run by Harvard School of Public Health of more than 30,000 middle-aged female nurses in the US called the Nurses Health Study II.

The women submitted info about their eating habits every 4 years for 15 years.

One finding was that women who ate more processed foods were more likely to develop depression, but now…

A more detailed analysis looked at specific components of their diets and found the only thing significantly associated with a greater risk of depression….

Was artificial sweeteners ❌

This study does not prove causation (it only shows association), but my question is this:

Is it worth the risk?

Reference

Samuthpongtorn C, Nguyen LH, Okereke OI, et al. Consumption of Ultraprocessed Food and Risk of Depression. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(9):e2334770. [link]

Zero-Calorie Sweeteners: Good or Bad?

Do you still believe that aspartame and other zero-calorie sweeteners have no effect on the body?

❌ It’s not true ❌

Researchers discovered several years ago that zero-calorie sweeteners messed with the gut microbiome in mice, but now?

It’s been confirmed in a human randomized controlled trial of 120 healthy adults (published in the journal Cell 2022)

Here are the study details:

✅ All participants strictly avoided artificial sweeteners before the study.

✅ Participants were given saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, or stevia sachets for 2 weeks (in doses lower than the acceptable daily intake) and compared with controls.

✅ Each of the sweeteners altered the microbiome of the mouth and gut in distinct ways, with sucralose causing the most prominent changes. 

✅ Sucralose and saccharin also impaired glucose tolerance (blood sugar control).

✅ Changes to the microbiome were causally linked with changes in blood sugar control. 

✅ The effects were individualized, differing from person to person.

The bottom line?

Even if sweeteners have zero calories, they are not inert. They might still disrupt blood sugar and might do that through mechanisms that involve the microbiome. 

But one word of caution: this should not be interpreted as a ticket to eat sugar! Too much sugar is known to lead to diabetes, heart disease, and many other issues. 

Instead, let’s take this as a reminder to get back to eating foods in the whole and natural form—with less processing, packaging, additives, OR sweeteners. 

🥦🍅🍑🫐🫑🥕🥑 

Reference

Suez J, Cohen Y, Valdés-Mas R et al. Personalized microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance. Cell. 2022. [link]