Published By: Ishani Karmakar

Are Artificial Sweeteners Bad For Health? Let’s Find Out!

Those with a sweet craving who don't want the calories of refined sugar or other natural sweeteners like honey, dates, and maple syrup can use artificial sweeteners. However, are artificial sweeteners harmful?

Sweeteners with lesser calories, such as artificial sweeteners and non-nutritive sweeteners, can be found in a wide variety of foods and beverages, as well as toothpaste and even certain prescriptions. Their caloric content is minimal, if not non-existent. There are a variety of artificial sweeteners on the market that have a higher sweetness potency than sugar. Some of these sweeteners can be 200 to 13,000 times sweeter than table sugar, depending on their composition.

Artificial Sweeteners and Their Effects

Artificial sweeteners help us cut our calorie intake while still enjoying a sweet flavour, but they also make it simple to overindulge in sweet foods and beverages.

While artificial sweeteners are approved by the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association, care is advised. Calorie consumption should still be kept in check to combat obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes and to lower the risk of heart disease.

While artificial sweeteners may not directly induce weight gain in humans, animal studies have shown that they can cause weight gain in animals as well as serious health problems such as brain tumours and bladder diseases.

Artificial sweeteners have been found in studies to impact many regions of the body:

Gut health

In spite of the fact that they are not absorbed, non-caloric artificial sweeteners may nonetheless reach the gut microbiota, affecting its composition and function and perhaps contributing to the onset of metabolic syndrome.

Researchers fed 10-week-old mice either saccharin, sucralose, or aspartame in their water. They acquired glucose intolerance eleven weeks later, compared to other mice that drank water or glucose or sucrose alone.

Malignant diseases

A combination of cyclamate and saccharin was found to induce malignant diseases in animal tests in the early 1990s. However, according to the FDA, carcinogenicity studies found no relationship between artificial sweeteners and diseases in people.

Mood swings, hunger pangs, and body weight

Artificially sweetened beverages have been linked to increased BMIs in a research study. Artificial sweetener users gain between 2.7 percent and 7.1 percent more weight than non-users, according to another study.

Aspartame-sweetened water has also been proven to enhance hunger in normal-weight adult males, compared to water or glucose alone. For example, aspartame was shown to have the best impact since it didn't leave a bitter aftertaste in the mouth, compared to acesulfame potassium and saccharin.

Headaches

Artificial sweeteners have been linked to headaches in a tiny percentage of people, according to a research study that has looked at the issue. The connection between aspartame and migraine patients is greater than previously thought. Sweeteners in diet beverages may cause headaches if they are used for a lengthy period of time, and not just one serving.