CONTROVERSIAL for many years due to conflicting reports about their potentially counterproductive, appetite-stimulating effect, artificial sweeteners may not be so bad after all, from a nutritional point of view.
Researchers in the United Kingdom and France have found that replacing sugar with artificial or natural sweeteners doesn't make people hungrier and can also help reduce blood sugar levels.
Whether it's aspartame in soda, sucralose to sweeten yoghurt without adding calories or acesulfame potassium in chewing gum, a whole host of food additives are used to sweeten foods without using sugar.
In a recent report, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety states that there is 4.5 times less aspartame in diets today than 10 years ago.
However, other so-called intense sweeteners are still present. But, contrary to what has been suggested for many years, this may not necessarily be a problem from a nutritional point of view.
A study led by scientists from the UK's University of Leeds in association with researchers from France's Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine Rhune-Alpes concludes that replacing sugar with artificial and natural sweeteners does not make people hungrier.
This finding is backed up by a study published in the highly respected journal 'The Lancet'.
Principal investigator Graham Finlayson, professor of psychobiology at Leeds' School of Psychology, explains: "The use of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers has received a lot of negative attention, including from high-profile publications linking their consumption with impaired glycaemic response, toxicological damage to DNA and increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
"These reports contribute to the current befuddlement concerning the safety of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers among the general public and especially people at risk of metabolic diseases.
"Our study provides crucial evidence supporting the day-to-day use of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers for body weight and blood sugar control."
The difference with previous studies is that this research doesn't focus solely on comparing aspartame to a control. Specifically, it looked at stevia, a natural sweetener, and neotame, an artificial sweetener.
Moreover, most previous scientific research on the subject has focused on the impact of sweeteners using sweetened beverages as the base product.
Here, the participants were asked to eat cookies with a fruit filling containing either sugar, stevia or neotame.
"Very few studies have examined the effect of repeated daily intake of a known sweetener or sweetness enhancer in the normal diet," the Leeds scientists explain in a news release, indicating that consumers should not take the study findings as a reversal of scientific opinion.
The trial involved overweight or obese patients who were asked to eat the given cookies for three two-week periods. Blood samples were taken to study glucose levels, as well as insulin and appetite-related hormones such as ghrelin.
The scientists found no evidence that sweeteners and sweetness enhancers negatively impacted appetite. Moreover, blood sugar levels were reduced, as were insulin levels, compared with sugar.
The conclusion is as surprising as it is straightforward.
According to professor Anne Raben from the University of Copenhagen, joint co-coordinator of the SWEET project, the pan-European research group behind the research: "The findings show that sweeteners are a helpful tool to reduce intake of added sugar without leading to a compensatory increase in appetite or energy intake, thereby supporting the usefulness of sweeteners for appetite, energy and weight management."
But that doesn't mean you should make sweeteners a permanent part of your diet.
In 2022, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research suggested that their consumption could be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
More specifically, aspartame may be correlated with cerebrovascular disease, while acesulfame-K and sucralose may be more closely associated with coronary heart disease.
