How safe are artificial sweeteners?

[Riprorin]

Anyone done any research on this? I'm particularly interested in the impact on kids.

 

[brunswickite]

dont they give you the runs? cha cha cha

 

[Eli]

There are some that are better than others. Sucralose(??) is good, I think.

Everybody will have an opinion. Of course, the artificial sweetener industry says they're harmless.

 

[mvandam]

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

 

[Fausto]

Honestly, why bother? If you're getting a significant amount of calories from sugar packets during the day, you need to alter your diet, not substitute Sweet-n-Low.

I'll take real sugar in small quantities over artificial stuff any day.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: Eli
There are some that are better than others. Sucralose(??) is good, I think.

Everybody will have an opinion. Of course, the artificial sweetener industry says they're harmless.

What about sucralose?

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: Eli
There are some that are better than others. Sucralose(??) is good, I think.

Everybody will have an opinion. Of course, the artificial sweetener industry says they're harmless.

What about sucralose?

IIRC, it's made from reall sugar... More "natural". Of course, natural doesen't always mean better for you.

Dunno, maybe I'm thinking of the wrong thing.

Check out the site mvandam posted.

 

[MrBond]

It's most of the stuff about aspiratime a hoax/not proven? Might want to check Snopes on that.

I use splenda in my coffee. Real sugar for everything else. Splenda seems to have a lower melting point and dissolves in my coffee easier than regular sugar.

 

[LeStEr]

Originally posted by: brunswickite
dont they give you the runs? cha cha cha

Hahahah cha cha cha

 

[Yossarian]

Even the ones that aren't "safe", like saccharine, only cause cancer in lab animals when they are massively overdosed for a long period of time. Very low on my list of concerns.

 

[ragazzo]

doesn't feel or taste natural to me. i like sugar in the raw heh

 

[0roo0roo]

splenda 0wnz

 

[RyanM]

Letter to the Editors of the Lancet, from two endocrinologists.

 

[Colt45]

real sugar owns j00. esp brown sugar.. realer.

 

[FoBoT]

extremely safe
you are much, much more likely to die in a car accident or from heart disease (bad diet, etc) than to be adversely affects by a sweetener

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: brunswickite
dont they give you the runs? cha cha cha

Olestra, the nondigestible fat, which is used in products like WOW chips and fat free Pringles has been known to do it for some people. I crap like a hog the next day but no runs.

I make VERY liberal use of artificial sweeteners. When a person is on a low cal diet and not using them for me at least it's quite hellacious. I drink a lot of diet pop and my meal replacement shakes/bars all use artificial sweeteners. Without them I'd either not be able to diet as easily as I can or be going insane from lack of "sweetness" in my diet.

 

[tokamak]

they probably make the lab rats eat their weight in the stuff every day. if you did that, then you'd have problems too. personally, i dont consume artificial sweetners, but thats because i dont drink coffee, like my tea unsweetened, and think diet soda tastes like crap...

 

[dullard]

There are two possible problems:
1) The artificial sweetener by itself is very slightly cancerous. I think with the accepted data, that if you eat nothing but saccharin for 70 years you are 50% likely to get cancer from it. Of course since it isn't digestible you'd never live that long since you'd die of starvation. In real world use, you'd have to eat it for thousands and thousands of years to have a 50% chance of getting cancer from it. Thus in one of his first duties as president, George W. Bush declared it to be non cancerous.
2) Unintended chemical reactions can make cancerous products. Take aspartamine for example. It is make from benzene (a known cancer cause) and wood alcohol (known to cause blindness). No reaction goes 100% to completeness. And reactions can go in the reverse direction. Aspartamine has the tendency to revert back to low levels of benzene and wood alcohol after long periods of time and at high temperature. Thus foods made with it almost always have a expiration date, and you are never ever to cook with aspartamine. However even then it is very low levels and you are not likely to get cancer.

Basically, yes it can cause harm but the chance of it happening is so minute you might as well ignore it.

 

[rgwalt]

As long as you aren't consuming them in mass quantities, I feel that they are pretty safe. One of my roommates in college went through a case of diet pepsi every three to four days. If he keeps that up for his whole life, he might end up with cancer. I'm not a big fan of anything but Splenda, but that is just me. Artificial sweeteners are at the bottom of the list of worries.

R