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Are artificial sweeteners linked to diabetes?
Should we give up artificial sweeteners?
Although this study is really interesting, it’s not enough to say that sweeteners cause diabetes.
Most of the experiments were performed with saccharin. In Canada, this sweetener was withdrawn from food in 1970 but was re-introduced in 2014.
The results were observed in mice and seven humans, half of whom suffered no reaction to it. We need findings from hundreds, if not thousands of people before drawing any recommendations.
This being said, I would never advocate switching to sweeteners. The purpose of these products is to reduce your caloric intake and help control diabetes by replacing sugar. However:
The Academy of nutrition and dietetics concluded in 2012 that very few good quality studies on humans have managed to prove that artificial sweeteners contribute to weight loss or have a significant effect on blood sugar levels to help diabetics.
Similarly, the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association assert that there is no compelling evidence of the usefulness of artificial sweeteners in controlling weight or blood sugar.
My short conclusion
Artificial sweeteners are probably safe for human health in the doses in which they are consumed. As always, we should not only consider the ingredients, but also the foods they are added to. Soft drinks, biscuits, breakfast cereals, chewing gum, candy… These are processed foods that should not form the basis of your diet. So it’s advisable to cut down on the consumption of such foods and eat their “naturally sweetened” version, rather than to believe that they are a better choice because they provide fewer calories!
Sources:
Academy of nutrition and dietetics. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics : Use of nutritive and nonnutritive sweetners. Journal of the academy of nutrition and dietetics 2012;112:739-758
Gardner C., Wylie-Rosett J. et coll. Nonnutritive sweeteners: Current use and health perpectives – A scientific statement from the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association. Diabetes Care 2012;35:1798-1808
Suez J., Korem T., Zeevi D., Zilberman-Schapira G. et coll. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature 2014
Extenso. Les substituts du sucre à la loupe. [ONLINE] http://www.extenso.org/article/les-substituts-du-sucre-a-la-loupe/ (Page view on September 22, 2014)
Santé Canada. Saccharine. [ONLINE]http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/addit/sweeten-edulcor/saccharin-fra.php (Page view on September 22, 2014)
Author
Bernard Lavallée is a nutritionist and author of the blog Le Nutritioniste Urbain. Specialised in communication and popular science, he has worked at Extenso, where he is frequently asked to comment on news and trends in nutrition for various media, since 2011. His goal is to use all forms of communication to reach consumers.
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