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Artificial Sweeteners - opinions!

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pawprint91

pawprint91

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I used to always drink sugar free drinks anyway, but since being diagnosed have had a few more, plus some sugar free jellies and a few other things - and I'm in 2 minds about artificial sweetener. I feel as though I consume more than I used to and I'm just wondering on everybody's opinions - not to judge, just on what you think about it overall. My non diabetic partner literally drinks diet coke like water and has done for years, whereas I feel a bit apprehensive when having a can of pepsi max followed by a 10 cal jelly in the same day :rofl:. They don't seem to have any immediate outward effects on me healthwise with digestion etc but yes ... basically I am just nosy and curious as to others thoughts as obviously if we do fancy something like a fizzy drink, it has to be sugar free!
 
I do limit my sweetener intake eg I usually have sparkling water rather than Diet Coke but will occasionally have a Diet Coke as a ‘treat’. I eat sugar-free jellies but, again, only occasionally. The one thing I do have most weeks are sugar-free Polos because I only have one or two and I like them.
 
I think with everything there is a balance and finding what you are comfortable with. To reduce my intake I started "diluting my diet cola and flavoured water. Not hugely like you would with squash but initially just 3/4 glass of cola and a quarter water and then gradually half and half and then a quarter cola or flavoured water and the rest water. This has allowed my taste buds to become desensitized to sweetness and means my water is still flavoured a little but not to a huge extent. I now find if I have a diet cola in a pub it is very sweet. This has worked well for me in reducing my sweetener intake both in respects of how much I consume but also how much my taste buds actually want.
 
Yuk! I really hate the taste. I just drink water and coffee. Not really much help!

I did read something interesting / shocking recently, tho, about artificial sweeteners - apparently, the brain isn't fooled by any kind of artificial sugar replacement and, basically, the researchers found that people who consume a lot of artificial sweeteners end up craving (and consuming) sugar in larger quantities. Eek!
 
I drink diet soft drinks with no issues, and get no craving for sugar.
 
I find some leave an aftertaste. I hate the so called sugar free jellies, and avoid some brands of other products for the same reason.
 
I agree that some sweeteners have an aftertaste and aren't even that sweet to me. Interestingly I am OK with the sugar free jelly but stevia and erythritol both have a horrid aftertaste and I have to have quite a lot to get any sweetness from them even though some info suggest you only need a third or the amount compared to sugar because they are more sweet. I am coming to the conclusion that maybe a tiny bit of sugar or honey is better than a whole load of sweetener but then that is easier for me to say as someone who uses insulin.
 
Been diagnosed 4 decades so have drank fair amount of diet drinks over that time, still enjoy them now & no intentions of stopping as had no ill effects & don't believe rubbish said in social media.
 
I sometimes have a tiny bit of stevia on my porrige in the winter months ( if not having berries and find I do not get any after tates from stevia ) I also personally almost never drink any bought fizzy drinks sugar free or otherwise apart from the odd sparkling water. I do have a soda stream to make my own fizz but not sure how many carbs are in it but it's great with a squeeze of lime or lemon 🙂
 
I had sweeteners regularly from about the age of 10 (when I tried nutrasweet now known as aspartame when they were launching it) through early adulthood, but have been trying to avoid them since my first kid was born as I had concerns about whether there was potential for long term damage for young children.
I have continued to try to avoid them as I have found in recent years that they trigger my IBS (dx when periods returned after youngest, mostly triggered in relation to menstrual cycle if I haven't had any trigger foods/drinks). My youngest (they're both now teenagers so get a bit more say!) now sometimes will have "diet" drinks but my eldest has found on trying them that they cause stomach issues. (I did have sugar free polo's a lot to manage the nausea with eldest so exposure antenatally for them which youngest didn't get, no idea if that is a factor in differing reactions now!). Sometimes we will have things with stevia (kids more than me).
My sister vomits if having any artificial sweeteners (which was how she realised when J2O added them... not a fun night out for her!) and has sometimes had other allergy symptoms too.

So I've always said I'd personally rather have (and give kids) occasional full sugar fizzy drinks etc than artificially sweetened. Though I guess now I've just been dx with diabetes that's just naturally sugar free for me....
It has long frustrated me that rather than gradually reduce the sweetness so we adjusted to it (in response to the sugar tax), similar to how they gradually reduced salt in foods in response to directives about that, most companies have chosen to replace some or all sugar with (usually artificial) sweeteners in drinks and similar products.
As much as I love sweet things, I would rather reduce my intake than switch to artificially sweetened alternatives.
 
Interestingly, there was an article on my newsfeed this week (which, of course, I can’t find again) about artificial sweeteners affecting blood sugars. The research candidates were split into groups of 20. Each group we given different artificial sweeteners except one group that was given “filler”. Then they measured their fasting blood sugars for two weeks afterwards. Every group apart from the “filler” group saw higher fasting levels for the whole 2 weeks after eating the sweeteners than prior to the test.
I think there was also a change in gut biome but I confess I didn’t pay as much attention to that part of the results,
 
42istheanswer said:
Interesting. And eek, the ones I have now let my kids have occasionally (and very occasionally had myself) seem to be worse. I wonder where the full study is published, I didn't spot that in a quick read through the article.
Click to expand...
If it is the one I saw it was the New Scientist.
 
helli said:
And the article just reappeared on my newsfeed https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/artificial-sweeteners-alter-gut-bacteria-in-humans-70395
Click to expand...
It was published in Cell: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9

A lot of questions being asked by experts on twitter:

- The authors generally are affiliated with precision nutrition start-ups which a lot of people are dubious about.
- The effect sizes reported are small and transient.
- The clinical trial registration was very imprecise, often seen as a no-no.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1560703110506582017

https://twitter.com/x/status/1560697703843221505

etc etc
 
grovesy said:
If it is the one I saw it was the New Scientist.
Click to expand...
That was the article I responded to, but New Scientist didn't publish the actual research paper.
 
Eddy Edson said:
It was published in Cell: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9

A lot of questions being asked by experts on twitter:

- The authors generally are affiliated with precision nutrition start-ups which a lot of people are dubious about.
- The effect sizes reported are small and transient.
- The clinical trial registration was very imprecise, often seen as a no-no.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1560703110506582017

https://twitter.com/x/status/1560697703843221505

etc etc
Click to expand...
Oh it would definitely need to be replicated in larger studies over longer time periods to show if the glycaemic changes are just an adjustment and/or incidental to the participants.

Microbiome changing kind of goes without saying to me though. Any significant change in diet changes gut microbiome, since it's our gut microbiome that does a lot of the heavy work of digestion for us.
 
There is a difference between artificial sweeteners (chemically produced such as aspartame) and alternative sweeteners (from natural sources such as Xylitol made from trees).

Some have potential side effects while others are safer alternatives to sugar.
 
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