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http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/FoodAdd...
"In the Israeli experiment, 10-week-old mice were fed a daily dose of aspartame, sucralose or saccharin. Another cluster of mice were given water laced with one of two natural sugars, glucose or sucrose.
After 11 weeks, the mice receiving sugar were doing fine, whereas the mice fed artificial sweeteners had abnormally high blood sugar (glucose) levels, an indication that their tissues were having difficulty absorbing glucose from the blood. "
So you feed group B sugar, and group A things that are not sugar, and then you put both groups through a glucose challenge, administering a calibrated amount of sugar, and group A's blood sugar spikes higher than group B's, which is not acclimated to metabolizing sugar. This is not surprising.
I suppose I'd need to read the journal article later when I have time, to be sure. There are a lot of things that look like interesting correlations in tests like this that actually aren't, when you control for all of the variables, and consider the short-term and long-term adaptations the body makes.
I've done a lot of research on the subject at hand, and I still believe that consuming real sugar is orders of magnitudes worse than using sweeteners.
I think one of the most important things to keep in mind when reading articles like this is the old mantra that "correlation does not equal causation". I'm always a bit skeptical when studies show partially successful statistics. I've done a lot of research on the subject at hand, and I still believe that consuming real sugar is orders of magnitudes worse than using sweeteners.
For the gut, or in general? If for the gut, please expand.
I think one of the most important things to keep in mind when reading articles like this is the old mantra that "correlation does not equal causation". I'm always a bit skeptical when studies show partially successful statistics. I've done a lot of research on the subject at hand, and I still believe that consuming real sugar is orders of magnitudes worse than using sweeteners.
It's entirely possible that this is just sloppy science journalism, but the distinction the SA article mentions sounds a bit ridiculous. "In the Israeli experiment, 10-week-old mice were fed a daily dose of aspartame, sucralose or saccharin. Another cluster of mice were given water laced with one of two natural sugars, glucose or sucrose. After 11 weeks, the mice receiving sugar were doing fine, whereas the mice fed…
Does anyone have any thoughts how Xylitol or Erythritol might fare under a study like this? They're currently my go to sweeteners. I'm not sure why they're not more popular.
But no idea how they'd fare under this sort of study.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that stevia is an "artificial" sweetener.
It's natural, but there are doubts about its safety. In many countries it is still banned. And in countries like the USA it has only been available for a short period of time (after lots of lobbying).
In the USA it was available until 1991 with not a single medical case against it - and again since 1994 (simultaneously considered "safe" on its own but "not enough data to classify as safe" as an additive).
Not to mention, it has more than a thousand year of use. See wikipedia[0] about history and also the part of "controversy".
Unlike the egg/cholesterol and salt intake recommendations, which appear to be grounded in scientific incompetence, any concerns about stevia seem to be strategically managed by a competitor.
I think one of the most important things to keep in mind when reading articles like this is the old mantra that "correlation does not equal causation". I'm always a bit skeptical when studies show partially successful statistics. I've done a lot of research on the subject at hand, and I still believe that consuming real sugar is orders of magnitudes worse than using sweeteners.
Does anyone have any thoughts how Xylitol or Erythritol might fare under a study like this? They're currently my go to sweeteners. I'm not sure why they're not more popular.