Study: Artificial sweeteners have no effect on blood sugar


(Karl) #1

Seems they test the four big sweeteners - but not the sugar alcohols.

They don’t stall me or anything (none of 'em do), but others may find this interesting.


#2

I think the relevant question is not whether they spike blood sugars but whether they spike insulin.


(Karen) #3

Still no info on how they affect insulin. I’d love to see a study like that.

K


(Karl) #4

I would think a study on insulin would be tough to perform… I recall reading about a study somewhere that shows even thinking of food has the potential to raise insulin (or something along those lines). If that’s the case, i’m not sure how you could ever get some kind of baseline on that.


(Karen) #5

I also heard smelling food can trigger insulin. I see what you mean.

K


#6

There is a proxy for that. If blood glucose declines after consuming a sweetner that is an insulin spike

Your blood glucose should stay stable not go up or down.

As for the article and the original study which is behind a paywall,

KetoConnect did an experiment and found big differences in blood glucose among sweetners


#7

Ooh, interesting point.

I have no idea if this is truly the case, but I guess I’m surprised if any of the sweeteners that can’t be used as fuel for the body and are approved by the FDA would cause much of an insulin spike. I have not looked this up in much detail, but guessing based on the the mechanism behind xylitol toxicity in dogs. In dogs, xylitol is mistaken for sugar by the pancreas and triggers a release in insulin similar to sugar, but doggy cells can’t take up xylitol. So whatever glucose is circulating is rapidly taken up instead, causing severe hypoglycemia and all the dangerous consequences of that.

Seems like the same thing would happen in humans if insulin were to spike up a result of eating a non-caloric sweetener, no?

Haven’t watched the video yet but will do as soon as I get home. Thanks for posting it.


(Steve) #8

It is ALL about insulin, IMHO. I avoid sweeteners because I feel they make me hungry. They may also mess with your gut bacteria.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

The thing is that the experience of people on these forums is that every artificial sweetener appears to be able to spike someone’s insulin, and a lot of people seem to react with an insulin spike to at least one artificial sweetener. That’s why we advise people to experiment and see what their reactions are to each sweetener, and it’s why a lot of people don’t use them at all.

As for the OP, I am guessing that the focus of the study was testing sweeteners to see if diabetics could safely use them, because everyone knows that diabetes is a disease of too much glucose and has nothing whatsoever to do with insulin levels, right? [/s]


#10

Thanks Paul, just checking, you do mean insulin spikes without blood glucose spikes? That’s the scenario I was figuring would make for a dangerous product. Or do you mean you get both? That I could understand more easily, wouldn’t be dangerous per se, in the sense that it wouldn’t put you at risk of hypoglycemia. We definitely agree that some sweeteners cause bg spikes, and the insulin spikes would be a normal reaction to that.


(Karl) #11

See, I have a bit of a different opinion on this.

Taking out the Dextrose/Maltodextrin/GI issues out of it for a moment, people in general seem to think that these sweeteners have the capability to “spike insulin”. Maybe they’re right. But if you read some of the scholarly papers on insulin response, they’ve found that people can spike one simply by thinking about food.

Yeah. Good luck avoiding THAT practice (yeah, fasters - i’m looking at you! lol)

I think artificial sweeteners catch the blame for a problem that’s probably a lot more involved. If thinking about food in general can create an insulin response, then sure, I suppose using an artificial sweetener could too. I just don’t think the blame for the insulin response rests solely on the use of an artificial sweetener. Rather, I think it’s just a convenient target because it’s sweet, and it’s that sugar stuff that got us all in this heap of trouble to begin with. It’s a convenient look-alike criminal that’s being wrongfully singled out when it’s really a bigger problem.


(Jack Rauber) #12

People in general seem to be very concerned about using artificial sweeteners. I’m not. I have experimented and found that sucralose works well for me. The taste is nearly the same and I have no adverse effects. The mention of gut bacteria being affected came from one study it of Israel. No other studies found this so I am not worried about this. Especially given the alternative of ingesting more calories. These AS are essentially inert in the body, passing through with little to no impact.


(Shayne) #13

I don’t have the links, but yes, there is at least one study that shows that tasting the sweet flavor can trigger an insulin response in anticipation of the blood sugar spike - even without swallowing the sweetener. (the test subjects just had it in their mouths and then spit it out)

As far as the gut bacteria thing, there is a study on aspartame that came out in the last year according to Dr. Nally on the Keto Talk podcast recently where he guest starred because his book was released. He said that it took about three months of him being off of aspartame for him to see the spike in his ketones. Again, I don’t have the link, but they probably posted it in the show notes for that episode.

Personally I find giving up aspartame to be the hardest because I love me some Diet Coke. If the people who stocked the refrigerators at the checkouts at stores would put some sparkling water in there, it would make it easier for me to give up the Diet Coke completely since that’s the only time I have it now.


(Karl) #14

Yeah, I think the AS data he perpetuates might be largely BS. I don’t think the human body is selective enough to say “oh, no more aspartame coming in? OK, proceed with weight loss again.” I think the insulin response might be real, I just don’t think the cause is an artificial sweetener by itself. I think it’s more complicated.

Either way, I’m fortunate in that I don’t really have to care, since I’ve never been stalled by an artificial sweetener :slight_smile:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

Yes, indeedy! That is what people on this forum say.

@IceNine Karl, I am aware of the the phenomenon of insulin spikes from thinking about food, but the way people on these forums describe their experiences with these non-caloric sweeteners, it appears that they react to one or another of the sweeteners without reacting to others, which would appear to rule out food mentation (nice fancy term, huh?) as the cause.

Whether the posters are right or not is impossible to tell, of course, but this is a consistent theme whenever artificial sweeteners are discussed in a thread. It seemed worth bringing up in this context, even though I have no such personal experience.


(Karl) #16

Yeah, that’s always been my problem with people hating on artificial sweeteners - particularly Sucralose (not splenda, mind you - actual sucralose.)

I’ve seen people swear up and down that sucralose stalled them - yet I don’t really know how that would be physiologically possible with a molecule that size not being absorbable (though I’m no expert on the subject).

One of the things that drives me nuts is reading posts from people (not necessarily here, reddit largely) about how Sweetener X absolutely stalls them, only to see that same poster finally “break a stall by [Insert random happenstance event here].” It makes me roll my eyes to the point where I’m staring at my own ass.

One person posted that they “cheated”, and THAT broke their stall. I don’t know, It’s not that I don’t want to take people’s posts at face value - I do. But I have an extremely sensitive bullshit radar - and while I’m sure it’s misfiring on me all the time, I tend to think something is bullshit until something empirical shows up. Yeah, I guess I have trust issues (i’m working on that lol) - it happens when your world gets shattered by the fact that it wasn’t fat that was killing me after living through the era of “Snackwells” :slight_smile:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #17

Fortunately, people here are a bit more reasonable and are actually willing to listen to evidence. And the rest of us are good at faking it (though, honestly, if you would all just realize that I’m always right, the world would spin around a whole lot faster, lol! :grin: ).

I wasn’t surprised that the researchers found that non-nutritive sweeteners don’t get converted into glucose or stimulate the liver into an orgy of gluconeogenesis. I suppose that had to be verified, however (science, after all). What did surprise me about the article was that they almost came out and said that diabetics shouldn’t eat sugar or carbs. Why, everyone knows that sugar is beneficial to diabetics, and that saturated fat is what causes diabetes. Oh, and that a ketogenic diet is unsustainable and will kill us. :wink: :grinning: :keto:


(Bunny) #18

Anything ending in-ose sounds too close to high fruct-ose corn syrup HFCS which gets turned directly into visceral fat around the liver and other organs by the liver and has no direct effect on insulin including punching holes in the gastrointestinal tract lining (leaky gut)!

Just the fact it is a heavily processed substance is enough for me to know it will mess the body up eventually in the long-term!

The 5 Worst Artificial Sweeteners:

“…There is additional evidence that links artificial sweeteners to the development of glucose intolerance and other metabolic conditions that result in higher than normal blood glucose levels. (7) According to a study published in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, frequent consumption of sweet-tasting, non-caloric foods interferes with metabolic function.

A 2018 study published in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases also revealed that the artificial sugar, sucralose (otherwise known as Splenda) and maltodextrin, intensifies gut inflammation in mice that carry Crohn’s-like diseases. Specifically, the artificial sweetener increases the number of Proteobacteria — a microbe bacteria associated with E. coli, Salmonella and Legionellales — in the mice who carried a Chrohn’s-like disease. Additionally, the ingestion of artificial sugar intensified myeloperoxidase (an enzyme in white blood cells) activity in individuals that have a form of inflammatory bowel disease. This study indicates that it may be practical to track Proteobacteria and myeloperoxidase in patients to adjust their diet and monitor the disease and gut health. (8) …” …More

FRUCTOSE: the Most Dangerous Sugar for Your Belly


(Omar) #19

Paul

let us say that it is scientifically proven that sugar substitutes spike insulin (I avoid using the term artificial sweetners because stevia is not artificial ).

So if I ingest sugars substitutes right after meals. Insulin will be spiked anyway when eating my meal.

The reason I avoid diet Pepsi and diet coke is because I demonstrated to my self that they lead me to anxiety and depression.

For Stevie it cause my blood glucose to slightly goes down which is a good indicator of insulin spike. But as I said if I ingest it in close proximity to meals, I can avoid additional time with my insulin level being up.

Is this a good thinking ?

Maybe not I do not know.


(Karl) #20

Yeah, I don’t buy that. I’m not saying you’re wrong, mind you - just that I don’t personally hold that view. To me, the way you worded it in my mind sounds very similar to the concept of “Guilt by association,” a very dangerous thing in my eyes.

I’m aware of the “gut” claims against artificial sweeteners as well - yet none of those articles seem at all definitive. It also seems it’s too new a field of study to make any sort of definitive claims, so people often defend their often-negative positions by using straw-man arguments to demonize artificial sweeteners with the gut-health angle.

In my view, consider it a 100% invalid opinion to say “we don’t know if it’s harmful, so you should just avoid it based on anecdote alone.” The argument often succeeds on the logic that “you’re doing it with carbs, so the argument can’t possibly be wrong.” But that Jedi mind trick doesn’t work on me.