Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:
“Another problem with unintended consequences, and I’m not sure how this impacts on the UK sugar tax regulations. It’s true that reducing overall sugar content is a good thing, but as always, the devil is in the detail. When the UK brought in the sugar tax, many commercial companies producing food and beverages, simply took out sugar to comply with the tax regulations and added non sugar sweeteners (NSS’s) most of them artificial/synthetic. There has been an increasing trend of research, looking into the negative effects of NSS’s, with conditional advice now released from the WHO (World Health Organisation).
A new guideline from the WHO on NSS’s recommends not using them to control weight or reduce the risk for diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. These sweeteners include aspartame, acesulfame K, advantame, saccharine, sucralose, stevia and stevia derivatives.
The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review that collected data from 283 studies in adults, children, pregnant women, and mixed populations.
The findings suggest that use of NSSs does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. They also suggest that long-term use of NSSs may have potential undesirable effects.
Because the link observed in the evidence between NSSs and disease outcomes might be confounded by the baseline characteristics of study participants and complicated patterns of NSS use, the recommendation has been assessed as “conditional” by the WHO (for the moment!)
However, they also suggest ” People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages,”. I’m hoping they’re not suggesting juicing fruit which significantly increases the level of free sugars!
Taste is often acquired, think back to your 1st cup of coffee, most people probably found the taste, awful, and yet caffeine beverages are probably the most consumed beverages in the world. Sugar is similar, the more sugar you have in your diet, the more, the body craves it and the more you like the taste. Many patients following a Metabolic Balance program comment on how after several weeks their taste changes, as they are following a lower glycaemic load diet. When they are exposed to high sugar foods (for example deserts and sweets) they often find them unpalatable!
The problem with many commercially produced foods and beverages is that if they do not taste good people simply won’t buy them or consume them, so there is a balance between enough sugar to make the product taste acceptable and not too much which has negative effects and also trying to minimise the use of NSS’s, because of the increasing recognition that the part has to play in ill health.”
Medscape
Aude Lecrubier
Silver Spring, MD — A new guideline from the World Health Organization (WHO) on nonsugar sweeteners (NSSs) recommends not using them to control weight or reduce the risk for diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. These sweeteners include aspartame, acesulfame K, advantame, saccharine, sucralose, stevia and stevia derivatives.
The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review that collected data from 283 studies in adults, children, pregnant women, and mixed populations.
The findings suggest that use of NSSs does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. They also suggest that long-term use of NSSs may have potential undesirable effects.
To clarify, short-term NSS use results in a small reduction in body weight and body mass index in adults without significant effects on other measures of adiposity or cardiometabolic health, including fasting glucose, insulin, blood lipids, and blood pressure.
Conversely, on a long-term basis, results from prospective cohort studies suggest that higher NSS intake is associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and all-cause mortality in adults (very low to low certainty evidence).
Regarding the risk for cancer, results from case-control studies suggest an association between saccharine intake and bladder cancer (very low certainty evidence), but significant associations for other types of cancer were not observed in case-control studies or meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
Relatively fewer studies were found for children, and results were largely inconclusive.
Finally, results for pregnant women suggest that higher NSS intake is associated with increased risk for preterm birth (low certainty evidence) and possibly adiposity in offspring (very low certainty evidence).
Reducing Sugar Consumption
“Replacing free sugars with NSS does not help with weight control in the long-term. People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages,” said Francesco Branca, MD, PhD, WHO director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, in a press release.
“NSSs are not essential dietary factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health,” he added.
Applying the Guideline
The recommendation applies to all people except individuals with pre-existing diabetes and includes all synthetic and naturally occurring or modified non-nutritive sweeteners, said the WHO.
The recommendation does not apply to personal care and hygiene products containing NSSs, such as toothpaste, skin cream, and medications, or to low-calorie sugars and sugar alcohols (polyols).
Because the link observed in the evidence between NSSs and disease outcomes might be confounded by the baseline characteristics of study participants and complicated patterns of NSS use, the recommendation has been assessed as “conditional” by the WHO.
“This signals that policy decisions based on this recommendation may require substantive discussion in specific country contexts, linked for example to the extent of consumption in different age groups,” said the WHO press release.