A case for Zero Calorie Sweeteners

(Note: this is one of those long posts @ 1500 words)

Artificial Sweeteners have been around for quite some time now and thus have been used by people for quite some time as well.

To clarify, it is not that such sweeteners have no calories, but rather are usually 20 times sweeter than sugar despite containing the same amount of calories. Hence, the same level of ‘sweetness’ can be obtained with 1/20th the calories (or less).

As with anything ‘artificial’, these substances are subject to the ongoing debate and attack of various parties. From ‘fundamentalists’ who think that everything should be natural, to people who are uncertain and thus don’t want to meddle in the ‘unknown’.

Of all the sweeteners, the most commonly used is arguably Aspartame

This has been hectared has a cancer causing agent, and I would wish to clarify on that claim. Fortunately for me (and everyone else), aspartame has been around long enough for actual human studies to have been done on large enough sample sizes.

In this post, I will discuss:

• What the current body of research says – frequent use of aspartame within limits does not contribute to cancer risk.
• Why using sweeteners may be good or bad and the ultimate need to consider context

First – A Word About Research

One of my biggest peeves is the media taking up some research paper and blowing it out of proportion. Very often, the facts and figures are correct, however the methodology is not considered. At times, the researchers’ discussion about their results is omitted, which often contains many crucial caveats. Worse still, will be the media agency added their own ‘analysis’ to this data, which very often turns out to be false.

One good example would be this article on the Sydney Morning Herald title “Aspartame Linked to Cancer“. The title is obviously meant to capture attention, and unfortunately few people may pay heed to the single line in the article. which I quote:

The Italian researchers found a cancer risk at the very highest doses – double the US Acceptable Daily Intake.

You will know why this represents an insane amount of aspartame later in the article.

My suggestion: Use Caution when reading anything in the mainstream media (Any non-science specific media, and no Discovery Newsletter doesn’t count). Take heed of the analysis of the writer and only trust the analysis if it is congruent with the actual research cited. If proper citations don’t exist or data is somehow or rather not accessible, assume you did not read the article.

The next problem is with animal studies. Some animal studies can be of benefit, and many of them do in fact benefit us. However, the fact that animals were used obviously leads one to question the results of the experiment had it been performed on real humans.

Let’s face one fact, Humans respond differently to various substances compared to animals. The problem is that many studies are done on rats, since they are easy to obtain and record data quickly and effectively from. Monkeys would be a better model but therein lies the inherent feasibility and ethical issues.

The problem really gets bad when rat sudies are extrapolated to be applicable to humans just from a small handful of studies, and then blown up by the mainstream media. The best case of this are the studies on rats concerning net protein balance.

Basically, rats showed that metabolism was decreased 4 hours after a meal. This was then thought to be true with humans, and thus came the ‘many small meals stoke the metabolic fire’ belief.

However, rats work on a much faster time scale as compared to humans. Fasting studies typically show a unchanged metabolic rate after 72 hours of fasting.

More pertinent to the topic, many anti-aspartame sites have sprung up, dorway.com, and mercola.com just to name two. I’m sure you can find many of such. I must say that you should pay attention to the references, not just the number of references.

For example, many of the references on mercola.com look like this:

Account of John Cook as published in Informed Consent Magazine. “How Safe Is Your Artificial Sweetner” by Barbara Mullarkey, September/October 1994.

Which isn’t exactly the most reliable and balanced of sources to get information from.

The take away is: Be wary of all the ‘research’, and trust your judgement based upon multiple scientific studies.

Also, read the researcher discussions in their work. In the scientific community, researchers will have to say they are uncertain about certain data points if they think so, lest he be hectered by his peers. That is the self-verifying nature of the scientific community. Also, enough data will have to be presented before any conclusions can be drawn, a single study will usually not result in acceptance in something as a universal fact. Most of the time, professional researchers do say when they are uncertain and when they are not. Do take those words literally.

What the Research Says about Aspartame

The short story is that most government organizations have given the pass on aspartame. This ties in with the current scientific research which shows no correlation between moderate habitual aspartame consumption to cancer risks or other issues.

Food Standards Australia and New Zealand published a July 2009 release on Aspartame which stated that it was safe. It sets a daily limit of 40mg/kg bodyweight. This is similair to the US recommendation of 50mg/kg bodyweight.

Some quick math puts the US recommendation at 3750mg for a 75kg adult, the equivalent of 21 330mL cans of diet soda. The Australian recommendation is 80% of this and thus we round down to 16 cans of soda. For a 20kg child, and using the Australian value, gives 1000mg a day, or the equivalent of at least 5 cans of soda.

As for the research backing these limits, there are many sites which provide such data with proper scientific citations. Such include the National Cancer Institute and the Aspartame Information Center.

Also of interest are research papers freely available to the public. One good example would be – Artificial sweeteners and cancer risk in a network of case–control studies. In this study, many different studies on different groups of people were compared to assess the resonable risk from habitual aspartame consumption. The researchers final line in the paper is:

In conclusion, therefore, this study provides no evidence that saccharin or other sweeteners (mainly aspartame) increase the risk of cancer at several common sites in humans.

I’m not going to rigorously analyze the article here, and you can read it for yourself for the exact details of the population studies done.

My main point I want to make is that information on such scientific research is often very accessible, as demonstrated by the very fact that this research paper was free.

The REAL point I want to make is: You can see all the research, and then can choose to believe what you want to believe. I hope that that belief is skewed towards a scientific approach.

The Good and the Bad

Scientific ranting aside, I can now address the potential use of aspartame and other sweeteners.

First, the Good.

The paper has another interesting line, which I quote:

In the present data, there was a direct association between consumption of sweeteners and laryngeal cancer risk. However, we found a borderline significant association also between sugar consumption and laryngeal cancer risk.

This statement tells us two things. Firstly, that consuming artificial sweeteners typically reduces consumption of sugar.

Secondly, the statement tells us that this may in fact decrease cancer risk by solving some problems associated with sugar consumption. Since increased sugar consumption predisposes one to many other problems, most importantly obesity, aspartame may help one cope with these problems. However, this second point is my own speculation and does not have scientific backing, so don’t take it too seriously.

The implications of this are straightforward – It helps people satisfy nagging sugar cravings without consuming too much calories.

Imagine taking an obese man who drinks 1 liter of soda a day. Replace all that with diet soda, and he saves approximately 300 calories. Instantly he can cut calories without feeling too deprived (if at all).

I will add that on very-low calorie diets, drinking some diet soda helps tremendously with adherence to the diet.

The Bad

However, to be fair, some people feel that drinking calorie-free drinks does not kill their sweet tooth.

It is also anecdotally noted that drinking diet sodas even enhanced the desire to eat, potentially causing problems.

However, these are limited problems at worse. I will emphasize the need to use your own discretion in the effective use of such sweeteners to tie in with your goals, be it to eat less or simply enjoy drinks without the calories.

In Conclusion

Aspartame and other sweeteners do not give any reasonable risk if consumed on a regular (daily) basis within limits stipulated by government departments. That value can be safely assumed to be 50mg/kg bodyweight a day.

As such, use such sweeteners as you would within these limits to aid in adherence to your goals.

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Tagged as: artificial, no-calorie, philosophy, sugar-free, sweeteners