The topic of artificial sweeteners is a complicated one to tackle, as many people have strong feelings about these substances, both positive and negative. Even the scientific research on artificial sweeteners can be conflicting and unclear!
We can take this discussion about artificial sweeteners in many directions, but for now let us focus specifically on artificial sweeteners and blood sugar management and weight.
What are artificial sweeteners?
Artificial sweeteners are substances that replicate the sweetness of sugar, but provide little or no absorbable calories. This appears to make them a goldmine for people who wish to satisfy their sweet tooth without gaining weight.
An easy way to know if a food product in the supermarket contains an artificial sweetener is to look for key words on the packaging, such as: “sugar-free”, “light”, “diabetic”, “diet”, “zero”. If you want to be certain, check the ingredients list on the nutrition label for one or more of the above-listed common sweeteners.
Intense sweetness with little or no calories almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Many people are sceptical about artificial sweeteners, and we often hear statements such as “they cause cancer” or “they actually make you gain weight” or “they’re not natural so they can’t be good for you, even if you’re a diabetic”. Let’s dig a little bit deeper!
What Does the Research Say?
Artificial sweeteners and blood sugar management
One very important characteristic of artificial sweeteners is that they really don’t have an effect on our blood sugar or blood glucose levels. In a nutshell, when we eat or drink a “regular” sweet food or beverage, e.g. soft drinks, juice, cake, fruit etc., the sugar (or honey or agave or high fructose corn syrup etc.) will be absorbed from the digestive system into the blood stream, causing the blood sugar to rise. Unlike sugar however, artificial sweeteners are not absorbed or metabolised by the body in the same way, and therefore don’t lead to that dreaded rise in blood sugar.
Does the research indeed support this? Indeed, studies have found that participants who consume food with artificial sweeteners experience a significantly lesser increase in blood sugar levels after meals, compared to those who do not consume artificial sweeteners. This information is perhaps most relevant to individuals living with diabetes and seeking ways to still eat or drink sweet tasting foods and beverages, but wanting to avoid spikes in their blood sugar levels.
Artificial sweeteners and weight management
So we’ve talked about the fact that these sweeteners may play a positive role in the blood sugar management of individuals living with diabetes. But remember, the original claim to fame of these synthetic sweeteners is that they contain little or no calories. Does the evidence support that consumption therefore helps with weight loss?
Interestingly, some observational research has found that individuals who consume a lot of artificial sweeteners are actually more likely to gain weight or have a great Body Mass Index, which is often the source of much debate around the effectiveness of artificial sweeteners. Now, “observational” studies are tricky because simply observing that people who drink a lot of artificial sweeteners (for example in the form of diet soft drinks) have the tendency to be overweight does not actually mean that the artificial sweeteners are the cause of said weight gain. However, we do know that there is still a lack of clear or definitive experimental evidence that artificial sweeteners either do or do not promote weight loss.
A 2017 systematic review of research included studies that found that groups of individuals consuming artificial sweeteners did lose more weight compared to those who were consuming regularly sweetened beverages. However, the same review also included studies that found no such link at all. The ultimate statement from this review of research studies was that the evidence “does not clearly support the intended benefits” of artificial sweeteners for weight management.
Let’s get logical
Let’s extract ourselves from this confusion and think logically for a minute. It does stand to reason that if someone is currently drinking multiple regularly sweetened soft drinks per week on a consistent basis, and they decide to switch to artificially sweetened beverages instead, they will be consuming less calories, and therefore should be more likely to lose weight.
What’s important to note here is that this person is replacing their regular sweet drinks, which contain calories from sugar, with artificially sweetened drinks, which contain zero calories. It would NOT stand to reason that someone who doesn’t drink sweet drinks to begin with would lose weight simply from introducing the artificial sweeteners into their diet as a new addition.
And what about the cases where people appear to gain weight, even after replacing their regular sweet drinks/foods with artificially sweetened options? There is a popular train of thought that we subconsciously overcompensate when we know we are eating or drinking zero calorie products. This is sometimes known as the “diet Coke and supersized fries” effect.
Essentially, the idea is that because we know that our diet soft drink contains zero calories, we now have “wiggle room” to eat a bigger portion of food, and what may happen is that we end up consuming more calories than we would have if we’d simply stuck with a regular soft drink. So the idea is that this overcompensation for the zero calorie drink (or food) results in weight gain (or in the very least, prevents weight loss).
At this point, we’ve seen that artificial sweeteners can play a positive role in blood sugar management, helping to prevent the blood sugar spikes resulting from regularly sweetened foods and beverages. When it comes to weight loss, the evidence is inconclusive. Stay tuned for more tips and facts on the bitter truth about artificial sweeteners! (NATION ARCHIVES)
This article was previously published in Better Health Magazine.