How Fake Sugars Sneak Into Foods and Disrupt Metabolic Health

Artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes sweeten foods without additional calories. But studies show that the ingredients can affect gut and heart health. From a report: Table sugar, or sucrose, is still the dominant sweetener in the food supply, and eating too many ultra-processed foods with added sugar has been linked to chronic disease and obesity. The number of new food products containing sucrose has fallen by 16 percent in the past five years. The use of high fructose corn syrup and agave syrup have also declined. “These low-calorie sweeteners are ubiquitous in the food supply, and so people often aren’t even aware they’re consuming them,” said Allison Sylvetsky, an associate professor in the department of exercise science and nutrition at George University. Washington. Many sugar substitutes are known as high intensity sweeteners because they are often hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar.

Some are synthetic, such as sucralose, aspartame, and saccharin, while others, such as allulose, stevia, and monk fruit extract, are called “natural” because they are derived from plants. Sugar substitutes can be found on ingredient lists on food packages, often with names that many consumers are unfamiliar with, such as adventame, neotame, and acesulfame potassium. Foods that claim “no artificial sweeteners” are often sweetened with stevia and other so-called “natural” sugar substitutes. A variety of these sweeteners are appearing in cereals, juices and other packaged foods marketed to children — even though public health groups have discouraged their use in children. Sucralose and acesulfame potassium are regularly used in Greek yogurt, tortilla wraps, and other foods served in school lunches. Schools in some states have experimented with serving chocolate milk sweetened with a mixture of sugar and monk fruit extract. […] Scientists used to think that non-nutritive sweeteners were mostly inert, activating the sweet receptors on our tongues and passing through our bodies without causing metabolic changes. But questions remain about the health effects of consuming large amounts of these ingredients. The World Health Organization warned people to limit their intake of sugar substitutes because of their potential for “unwanted” long-term effects, including harmful effects on gut and metabolic health.