TRUTH ABOUT “ARTIFICIAL SWEETNERS”

Good new for diabetic when you're trying to reduce the sugar and calories in your diet, you may be turning to artificial sweeteners or other sugar substitutes. You aren't alone. The popularity of artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes is on the rise as manufacturers and consumers seek lower calorie alternatives to regular white sugar without sacrificing sweetness.

Today, artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes are found in a variety of food and beverages marketed as "sugar-free" or "diet," including soft drinks, chewing gum, jellies, baked goods, candy, fruit juice and ice cream. In addition, other sugar substitutes are being touted as healthier sweeteners than regular sugar, even if they don't have fewer calories, such as honey and jaggery.

Artificial sweeteners are synthetic sugar substitutes but may be derived from naturally occurring substances, including herbs or sugar itself. Artificial sweeteners are also known as intense sweeteners because they are many times sweeter than regular sugar. In addition, you need only a fraction compared with the amount of regular sugar you would normally use for sweetness. Some artificial sweeteners may leave an aftertaste.

Alternate sweeteners can be classified as nutritive and non-nutritive.
Nutritive sweeteners contribute energy, whereas on-nutritive sweeteners do not.

Nutritive sweeteners apart from sugar, jaggery and honey include fructose, corn syrup, refined sugars, lactose, glucose, dextrose, concentrated fruit juices.









Non- nutritive sweeteners include saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame –K and sucralose offer no energy but as they sweeten with little volume are also referred to as high intensity sweeteners.


People who are weight conscious moved to diet drinks, diabetic sweets, jams and use sweetener for all their beverages and fruit juices. But now the studies are showing a correlation between use of artificial sweeteners and weight gain over a time period; this is due to how complex our body regulation of calories and other nutrients works. Because of misconception about artificial sweetener people think it is calorie free and tends to take in excess which leads to weight gain rather than weight loss. One thing for sure though that it doesn’t help with weight loss.












Artificial sweeteners tend to habituate our taste buds to an extent where it starts to demand more intense sweet flavors to please itself.


Artificial sweeteners may be a good alternative to sugar if you have diabetes. Unlike sugar, artificial sweeteners generally don't raise blood sugar levels because they are not carbohydrates

The FDA has also established an acceptable daily intake (ADI) for each artificial sweetener. Moderate consumption of these sweeteners as a tabletop sweetener can be recommended.