Artificial sweeteners: Do they really control blood sugar levels, raise the risk of heart attack and stroke in diabetics?

“I always drink diet colas and take two helpings of artificial sweeteners for each of the seven to eight cups of tea and coffee that I drink daily. Still I am gaining weight,” lamented my 30-year-old female patient.
Like her, many of us have a sweet tooth and look for a replacement to sugar. And artificial sweeteners seem to be an instant answer. But there are more problems than meets the tongue here and research has revealed some troublesome problems.
WHAT ARE ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS?
Artificial sweeteners, also called non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS, because these have no nutritional potential) are prepared chemically. They are 30-1,300 times sweeter than the natural sugar called sucralose. These are used in preparation of sweetened beverages, juices, dairy products, desserts, processed foods, jams and so on. There are several artificial sweeteners that contain aspartame, saccharine, sucralose, neotame, cyclamate, acesulfame-k, stevia, erythritol and so on. The first five of these have been generally recognised as safe (GRAS) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), USA. Stevia, a plant based sweetener that has been used in Japan since the 1970s, has not yet been approved by the FDA. These have been promoted as diabetes and tooth-friendly and ideal for inducing weight loss.
DEVELOPMENT OF ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS WAS ALWAYS PROBLEMATIC

The story of saccharine is widely known as it was used in both World Wars for sugar rationing. In laboratory animals, it was found to induce bladder cancer. This doubt was later cleared with further studies. Aspartame is toxic to patients who suffer from a rare disorder called phenylketonuria. It has been blamed for brain tumours and chronic fatigue syndrome without any concrete proof. The fear of cancer with the use of these alternatives still lingered in people’s minds.








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