Artificial Sweeteners danger

Health & Diet Health & Diet: In The News
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I’ve always eyed artificial sweeteners with suspicion

Basically, they’re a processed food, aren’t they? Chemicals?

And because they’re new, we know nothing about the effects of long-term consumption

And we’ve all been used as guinea pigs to test them out, in the name of fighting obesity and health

And companies profits. The bit that’s not often mentioned is that they’re much cheaper to use than sugar

And children will consume an awful lot of them in their lifetime

Up to now, people have scoffed at me :laughing:

But now there are question marks over two sweeteners, aspartame and sucralose

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Aspartame has been questioned for a very long time. I think it was 10 years ago that I was trying to read up on it. Someone who told me they were a vet on the internet said that aspartame damaged the brains of mice. I’ve tried to avoid it since. It’s surprising how many vitamins use aspartame.

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I do not touch either, so I should be sweet enuf without any additives :wink:
I’m the chef/cook/baker in my household and without any of those artificial saccharides, only fructose (a form of fruit derived sugar) when it’s absolutely necessary will pass from my hands into a mixture before me. Fructose is ultra sweet, so less is needed for the same effect as double the amount of granulated sugar, but without too many calories and spiking peoples blood glucose as traditional sugar would. Nobody becomes hyper active in my household👍

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I’ve taken ’ sweetex’ for years in coffee . I drink 3 cups a day on average and I’m sure they must be bad for me . I don’t want sugar as I avoid it as often as i can . I buy sugar free drinks but expect they are full of artificial sweetners .

Yes I’m sure they are not good for us but I doubt I’ll stop now

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5

I’ve been using Splenda for a little north of a decade now and I seem to feel okay, but I’m not a doctor either. Maybe the sweetener is causing me harm silently and over time and I just don’t know it.

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I think Sweetex is saccharin? And there are no medical alerts on saccharin at the moment

The low calorie drinks may well have sucralose or aspartame though, maybe check the labels?

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This is my worry, you see.

No one knows the effect of using these sweeteners long term, we’re the first generation to do it and basically they’re trying them out on us

I’m glad you feel well though and hopefully this is just one of those food scares

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8

Another example of paranoia rearing it’s ugly head again.

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None of this will matter when we outlive our predecessors by a couple of years or so, its up to the statisticians then :icon_wink:

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10

I’m having Demerara sugar in my three cups of strong coffee tomorrow morning, sod the consequences I say!

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Is the danger from artificial sweeteners greater than the health hazard that is sugar?

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I think that was the only sugar people would have in their coffee in the olden days.

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I try to avoid artificial sweetener but I do like diet coke. I’ve been trying water with ice and a slice of lime instead recently. Water on its own is boring but a slice of lime makes all the difference. I do think scares like this are all about whether you shovel the stuff into your mouth from a wheelbarrow. All our lives we are surrounded by carcinogens and threats to our health.

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14

Yes far more so.

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15

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!

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16

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Where in years gone by, sugar was added to some medicines to make them more palatable, now you will find types of artificial sweeteners added instead.

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This was a big thing in the 80s,same information as today but no proof.
I never use them as i don`t trust that they can be safe to consume,natural all the way for me.

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This has been doing the rounds for decades. first it was carcinogenic, then it wasn’t. The last time I looked it said that artificial sweeteners were the most tested product EVER by the food agencies and the World Health Organisation. Now it’s supposed to be dreadful again.

I have 2 sweeteners a day, morning tea and a coffee later on. That’s it! I am not going to fret over 2 sweeteners. If i have a diet drink like pepsi or coke that’s maybe a can once a fortnight.

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As I’ve always been dubious about them and don’t like the taste anyway, we won’t be having anything with them in in our shopping

I think it’s better to just try to reduce your sweet tooth by having less anyway

And if it really needs needs sweetening to use real sugar, honey, maple syrup etc

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I decided to give up sugar and started to use a sweetener, after about a week of this it occurred to me that it was stupid so gave up the sweetener. It took me a couple of days to get used to unsweetened tea and coffee but now if someone gives me sweetened tea or coffee by mistake I really dislike the taste.