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 The review of 37 studies suggests the use of so-called non-nutritive
sweeteners could be linked to weight gain and other undesirable
outcomes like high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.
"From all that research, there was no consistent evidence of a long
term benefit from the sweetener, but there was evidence for weight
gain and increased risks of other cardiometabolic outcomes," said
lead author Meghan Azad, of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg,
Canada.
Artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose and stevioside are
growing increasingly popular as evidence mounts that sugar is
fueling the obesity epidemic, Azad and colleagues write in CMAJ.
The artificial sweeteners are chemically different than sugar. They
activate receptors on the tongue that lets the brain know the person
is eating or drinking something sweet.
Past research on these sweeteners shows a mixed bag of results,
including links to weight gain, as well as links to weight loss,
according to the authors of the new review.
For the analysis, they looked through the medical literature for
studies examining possible links between artificial sweeteners and
weight or health issues like obesity.
The researchers found seven randomized controlled trials, which are
considered the gold-standard of medical research. Some of the
trials, for example, compared people who drank artificially
sweetened beverages to people who drank water. The researchers also
found 30 studies that followed people using the sweeteners over
time.
They found no link between the use of artificial sweeteners and
changes in body mass index (BMI), which is a measure of weight in
relation to height, among the 1,003 people in the randomized
controlled trials. They also didn't find a link between the
sweeteners and other outcomes.
Among the 405,907 people included in the 30 other studies, the
researchers found that artificial sweeteners were tied to a small
increase in BMI, weight, waist size, obesity, high blood pressure,
heart problems and metabolic syndrome.
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"I think it’s cause for some caution and rethinking whether or not
these products are without any effect," Azad told Reuters Health.
The researchers caution, however, that the studies that followed
people over time may be biased since artificial sweeteners are
promoted as a treatment for conditions like obesity or diabetes.
Also, the randomized controlled trials were relatively short.
Azad also said they were not able to look at individual sweeteners.
"It’s possible that different sweeteners have different effects, but
we were not able to examine that because of the studies available,"
she said.
The risks and benefits of these sweeteners need to be evaluated, but
the science examining those benefits is lacking, said Sai Das of the
Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts
University in Boston, who was not involved with the new study.
"It is time for the science to look at what - if any - benefits
there are to see if that is meaningful enough to outweigh the risks
that have been highlighted," Das told Reuters Health.
Until there is better research, Das said, people should use be
cautious about using artificial sweeteners.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2uvkTKk CMAJ, online July 17, 2017.
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