Last month I ended a blog on the evils of fructose with “Stay tuned… I am sure that there is much more on this topic coming soon!” Accordingly, it was with great anticipation that I printed out a copy of “Nonnutritive Sweeteners: Current Use and Health Perspectives- A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association” published in the August 2012 issue of Diabetes Care.
Unfortunately this paper is kind of like the movie “Waterworld.” Although I never saw the movie which received four “Razzie” awards including: Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor, the preview looked pretty cool.
The title of the new paper led me to believe that there might be some information on how nonnutritive sweeteners (NNS) impact health. In the beginning of the paper the authors tell us that the FDA has deemed Acesulfame-K (Sweet One), Aspartame (Nutrasweet), Neotame, Saccharin (Sweet’N Low), Sucralose (Splenda), Stevia Glucosides (Truvia, PureVia and Sweet Leaf) to be safe and issues related to the safety of these compounds are not addressed in the paper.
In a nutshell this paper spends 11 pages to tell us that there is insufficient data to determine whether the use of NNS reduces added sugars or carbohydrate intakes, or benefits appetite, energy balance, body weight or cardiometabolic risk.
The paper does suggest that NNS could facilitate reductions in added sugars intake and thus promote weight loss and improve weight related metabolic factors. The most interesting topic covered in the paper is the idea that human beings may compensate for reduced calorie intake associated with NNS by consuming more calories at a different time in the day. While there are some studies that indicate humans do and don’t compensate for calories missed, for example when one consumes a light yogurt or diet soda, there aren’t enough human studies to conclusively give the concept of “compensation” a thumbs up or thumbs down.
If you have an hour to burn you may want to download this paper and read it for yourself. However, unlike a lot of movies that have been made, the sequel to this paper may prove to be a lot better than the original.
Addendum
In the July 2012 blog I referenced a researcher by the name of Kimber Stanhope from UC Davis. I recently listened to a very interesting podcast interview with her on the Reach MD website. This interview can be accessed as follows: http://www.reachmd.com/xmsegment.aspx?sid=4562
Reference:
Gardner, et al. Nonnutritive Sweeteners: Current Use and Health Perspectives- A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association. Diabetes Care 35 (8):1798-1808, 2012.