Artificial sweeteners topic - is Stevia safe compared to the others?

[Thetruthseeker]

As far as artificial sweeteners go is stevia the safest? 
I’m sick of hearing conflicting reports on artificial sweetener’s so wondered people’s thoughts. 
 

do you 100% stay away from Sucralose or aspartame? If you had to use one sweetener, which would it be?   

[Osaid]

I use sugar alcohols, a mix of monk fruit and erythritol in particular. Health-wise, there's nothing alarming about them. Erythritol actually seems to be good for your oral health, even more so than xylitol. If I had to pick one, it would be erythritol because of how similar it is to sugar, and also the oral benefit is nice.

Stevia is a bit more controversial cause of some studies regarding the gut microbiome, but it's inconclusive and they use a really high concentration in the study. But, if we're considering the studies, technically it would be less safe than the sugar alcohols mentioned above.

41 minutes ago, Thetruthseeker said:

do you 100% stay away from Sucralose or aspartame?

I basically never encounter these in my diet anyways, so I don't really have to set the intention. I could have them once in a while if it's a cheat day or something.

[Thetruthseeker]

@Osaid thanks for this. Yes I guess the main time I run into this is a post workout protein shake. Even all the vegan ones most have sucralose in them .. but the more ‘natural’ ones have Stevia in them 

i guess out of those two I will pick stevia though. 
 

[Yarco]

The process of making stevia is closer to how sugar is refined, compared to how aspartame or sucralose are created. IMO it's a more natural process.

They concentrate an extract from the stevia plant in a crystallized form, similar to extracting sugar from sugar cane or sugar beets.

If you want to be more natural and healthy, you can use dried stevia leaves instead of the powder. Or grow your own stevia in a couple of pots or a window box indoors year-round, and add a few leaves to your drinks instead. I did it several years back, I think I got the seeds from eBay and it was quite easy to grow, similar to mint or other herbs.

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Yarco

[Thetruthseeker]

@Yarco thanks 

this article confused me saying stevia if anything was more problematic than other sweeteners 

https://awesomesupplements.co.uk/blogs/nutrition-fitness/is-stevia-the-healthiest-sweetener?_pos=1&_sid=890a9c8ea&_ss=r

[Osaid]

7 hours ago, Thetruthseeker said:

i guess out of those two I will pick stevia though. 

I would do the same as well.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Osaid

[eos_nyxia]

11 hours ago, Thetruthseeker said:

I’m sick of hearing conflicting reports on artificial sweetener’s so wondered people’s thoughts.

We're probably not going to hear any sort of resolution on that any time soon. But generally, I would tend to assume that it is, at its very best, unnecessary. Unless there is some sort of "benefit" that I have never heard of...

I've tried quite a few Stevia-based sweeteners over the past 15-20 years, and this one is one of the very best, IMO:

'

A lot of them have this aggressively herbal, bitter aftertaste, and this is one of the few that doesn't.

[Michael569]

There doesn't appear to be a difference in terms of health outcomes. Although we have significantly less research on things like Stevia compared to aspartame or xylitol but overall where metabolic health is concerned , artificial sweeteners (for people having hard time giving up sugar sweetened beverages) lead to less obesity, less diabetes and less cardiovascular disease.

That being said if you don't need sugar you won't benefit from using them obviously ?

The microbiome bit might be a concern but so far we have extremely poor evidence for that as it is notoriously difficult to test micriobiome adaptation in clinical trials. Losing weight is often associated with improved microbiome profile so for all we know, using them instead of sugar might even benefit microbiome since using them could be a proxy to also eating a slightly better diet.

But overall from high altitude perspective where benefits vs costs are compared, artificial sweeteners are beneficial for people who would otherwise consume excessive amount of sugar and get fatter. Having high BMI is the major concerns here

Edited November 19, 2022 by Michael569

[Jannes]

19 hours ago, Michael569 said:

There doesn't appear to be a difference in terms of health outcomes. Although we have significantly less research on things like Stevia compared to aspartame or xylitol but overall where metabolic health is concerned , artificial sweeteners (for people having hard time giving up sugar sweetened beverages) lead to less obesity, less diabetes and less cardiovascular disease.

That being said if you don't need sugar you won't benefit from using them obviously ?

The microbiome bit might be a concern but so far we have extremely poor evidence for that as it is notoriously difficult to test micriobiome adaptation in clinical trials. Losing weight is often associated with improved microbiome profile so for all we know, using them instead of sugar might even benefit microbiome since using them could be a proxy to also eating a slightly better diet.

But overall from high altitude perspective where benefits vs costs are compared, artificial sweeteners are beneficial for people who would otherwise consume excessive amount of sugar and get fatter. Having high BMI is the major concerns here

I listened to a summary and it says the same as you. „It’s great for weight loss and weight loss makes you healthier. 
Also the chemicals are tested a lot before they are allowed to be mixed in food.“
But I am still skeptical and even fearful about it. I got small headaches after I drank a liter of diet soda the last 2 times. I feel like there has to be quite a lot (of not good stuff) going on in your body in order to feel a headache. I have already got ADHD to deal with, I don’t want to loose more cognitive functionality. And I fear that maybe their effect on your health is very sneaky and not that easily traceable. Maybe similar to heavy metals where small amounts of them in your body are falsely considered healthy. Could they attatch to your body and avoid detoxing from the body like heavy metals do @Michael569 ?

Edited November 19, 2022 by Jannes

[Michael569]

@Jannes look, you don't need them. I assume you are a healthy dude with low sugar diet. You are not the core group of this discussion. 

But for people who are at lifetime risk of diabetes due to drinking sugar and bring unable to unwire his habit, this basically helps reduce that and reduce the risk of diabetes -related complications such as blindness, kidney failure and gangrene. The costs of managing diabetes are absolutely astronomical to the health services so if getting a bit of ADD while having less gangrene helps, this is a trade-off worth doing. This is a public health discussion not how to optimize health of the 0.2% of health freaks like you and i.

I don't think sweeteners are something that healthy people caring about longevity need, in fact you should not need to sweeten your liquids in any way. But again, this stuff is not something you should even need to cocern yourself about if you are health nut

Does that make sense?

 

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Michael569

[Jannes]

14 hours ago, Michael569 said:

@Jannes look, you don't need them. I assume you are a healthy dude with low sugar diet. You are not the core group of this discussion. 

But for people who are at lifetime risk of diabetes due to drinking sugar and bring unable to unwire his habit, this basically helps reduce that and reduce the risk of diabetes -related complications such as blindness, kidney failure and gangrene. The costs of managing diabetes are absolutely astronomical to the health services so if getting a bit of ADD while having less gangrene helps, this is a trade-off worth doing. This is a public health discussion not how to optimize health of the 0.2% of health freaks like you and i.

I don't think sweeteners are something that healthy people caring about longevity need, in fact you should not need to sweeten your liquids in any way. But again, this stuff is not something you should even need to cocern yourself about if you are health nut

Does that make sense?

Haha that’s you in the 0.2%. My poor body is probably only in the top 10% ?. But I did incorporate to much sugar lately and got bad skin from it. To get over my desire for sweetness I bought sugar free soda but I don’t think that’s a good solution anymore but I cant think of other good alternatives. I get what your saying though. 

[Jannes]

9 minutes ago, Judy2 said:

@Jannes @Michael569 i'm gonna throw "natural sweeteners" into the mix. how about date sugar/syrup, coconut sugar etc.? they do have (nearly) as many calories as regular sugar, obviously, but what about the overall health impact in comparison to regular table sugar and artificial sweeteners?

Whole dried dates are healthy af. They even lower blood sugar levels despite being sugar bombs themselves if I remember correctly. And I think that even translates a decent amount to the syrup/sugar form of dates. So yeah that’s an alternative.  But a lot more costly and you probably won’t find complete junk like biscuits made out of it ?.
Coconut sugar is basically as bad as regular sugar just with a few extra minerals if I remember correctly. 
damn there is so much information that I absorbed in my "healthy phase" and I don’t know any of the science behind it. ?

[Michael569]

@Judy2 good question. I don't know if there is any fundamental difference other than the overconsumption.

Sugar itself isn't the enemy. It's the consecutive weight gain. So if you use date sugar too much and it causes weight gain then date sugar becomes harmful. (I assume we are talking about extracted sugar, not the actual dates)

I'd assume people using date sugar already having a pre existing awareness and using it sporadically where a typical user of sucrose will often overconsume due to lack of health awareness..so that may skew the results.

But whether there is something in date sugar that isn't in regular one? No idea, maybe. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Michael569

[Jannes]

15 minutes ago, Judy2 said:

@Jannes sounds about right:) what phase are you in now that your healthy phase is over??

I still have a pretty healthy diet as a base but I don’t mind adding a little junk here and there anymore. My health phase wasn’t psychologically healthy at all. It was actually an eating disorder known as Orthorexia which is when you focus extremely obsessively about clean food to a point where it becomes your whole life. Oh God I felt so much relief when I first ate nothing but biscuits for dinner for once. I feel like I ate a bit to healthy the last week. I definitely need to add some bullshit to my diet again to keep me healthy ?. 

[Jannes]

@Judy2 thanks : )

Edited November 21, 2022 by Jannes