The Truth About Artificial Sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners are often the topic of heated debate. On one hand, they're claimed to increase your risk of cancer and harm your blood sugar and gut health. On the other hand, most health authorities consider them safe, and many people use them to reduce their sugar intake and lose weight. *Artificial sweeteners are chemicals used to sweeten foods and beverages. They provide virtually ZERO CALORIES.

*Many TYPES of artificial sweeteners exist, the most common ones include aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, neotame, and acesulfame potassium.

*Recent studies have found that replacing sugary foods or drinks with artificially sweetened ones may REDUCE HUNGER and CALORIE INTAKE and also help you LOSE SOME WEIGHT.

*Artificial sweeteners can help those with DIABETES. Also they are UNLIKELY to increase the risk of CANCER in humans, and when consumed instead of sugar, decrease the likelihood of TOOTH DECAY.

Some facts and figures drawn from researches done by renowned Associations : 

*The ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake) for ASPARTAME as set by the JECFA (Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives) is 40 mg/kg/d. To reach the maximum intake that’s still almost certainly safe, an 80 kg person (176 lb) needs to consume 80 x 40 / 37 = 86 packets of Equal sweetener.

*The ADI for SUCRALOSE set by the JECFA is 15 mg/kg/d. There are 12 mg sucralose in a packet of Splenda, so if you weigh 80 kg (176 lb), you can safely consume at least a 100 packets of Splenda per day.

*STEVIA extract’s ADI is expressed by the JECFA as 4 mg/kg/d steviol equivalent, which is equal to about 12 mg/kg/drebaudioside A. A 80 kg (176 lb) individual can only consume 12 packets of Coca Cola Stevia extract.

According to the data, it can be safely said that Artificial Sweeteners are favorable. And if we look at the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI), which is equivalent of drinking well over a dozen cans of diet soda every day, its practically impossible to reach even close to that number; which means that you can enjoy that can of diet coke/soda without thinking too much about the Artificial Sweeteners.

Special mention to fitness expert @nilparnasen who provided her valuable information for this post.

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