Sweeteners
If consumed regularly, sweeteners can potentially increase the risk of heart disease.
The dark side However, consensus around sweeteners is not all positive, with recent studies raising questions around the safety and benefits that these alternatives pose. In 2014, a large study by the University of Iowa followed 60,000 women for 8.7 years on average and their consumption of artificially sweetened soft drink. Those that drank two or more diet drinks had 30% higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and were 50% more likely to die from it.
“With the advancement of new technologies, even more development and progress in the area of sweeteners is expected, giving food and beverage manufacturers even more options and combinations in terms of taste, functionality and nutrition.”
30%
The percentage of women who drank two or more diet drinks per day, over a period of 8.7 years, that were revealed to have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. The study involved 60,000 women.
University of Iowa 72
While these finding are concerning, the women participating were often younger smokers with a higher prevalence of diabetes, high blood pressure and higher body mass index. It would, therefore, be too much to claim from this study that sweeteners are the culprit, but it does raise questions around the substance as this is not the first study to raise similar findings – albeit with similar variables. The most recent of which has been a large study undertaken by the BMJ in France, which found links between artificial sweeteners and cardiovascular disease. But, as an observational study, the researchers cannot rule out unknown factors that could have affected these results. Clearly the sweeteners industry needs more concrete studies to answer these growing fears, with the researchers responsible for the study calling for a re-evaluation by EFSA to assuage fears.
Although, in spite of these studies, the low-calorie alternative that sweeteners offer is still hailed as a weight loss solution by many, and Storms agrees. According to her, there is a weight of scientific evidence that shows the use of LNCS’s as a useful dietary tool to support healthy body weight. “As LNCS provide few or no calories, when LNCS are used to replace sugar, they can help manage body weight because there is a net significant caloric decrease in overall calories consumed,” she adds. “Meta-analyses have shown that the use of LNCS favours the reduction of body mass index, fat mass and waist circumference.” Through Tate & Lyle’s portfolio of low and no-calories sweeteners and fibres, the company aims to remove nine million tonnes of sugar from people’s diets from 2020 to 2025. “That’s the equivalent to 36 trillion calories.” As Storms explains, all LNCS’s that are approved for use by various health authorities worldwide have not only gone under intensive safety evaluations but have also been approved to be consumed within acceptable daily intakes (ADIs). “ADI is a conservative measure of the amount of a specific substance in food or drink that can be ingested daily over a lifetime without an appreciable health risk.
“Because of their intense sweetening power, several hundred to several thousand times sweeter than sugar, these sweeteners can be used in very small amounts and thus it is unlikely that anyone will exceed the ADI value, especially in a consistent manner throughout their life.”
Pick and mix
The consumption of sugar and market as a whole has been declining over the past few years in many countries as result of government policies to improve healthy and general preferences. In its wake, the demand for replacements via artificial or natural healthy sweeteners has skyrocketed. “A recent US survey found that more than 70% of shoppers choose to limit sugar consumption when buying groceries, which is unlocking more opportunities to use sweeteners. Food and beverage manufacturers are responding to these shopping trends with assortments of new and reformulated products,” agrees Storms. “When examining food and beverage launches with sugar reduction claims, we can see increases in every region of the world, with Australasia, North America, Europe, and Latin America showing the highest percentages of these products in the marketplace.” “With the advancement of new technologies, even more development and progress in the area of sweeteners is expected, giving food and beverage manufacturers even more options and combinations in terms of taste, functionality and nutrition.” ●
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
Kabachki.photo/
Shutterstock.com
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