Massive study, shows artificial sweeteners are not a healthier choice

Routinely having sweeteners leads to weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes. 

Leave it to Canada to ruin artificial sweeteners.

A massive study there shows that artificial sweeteners are actually more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss. They simply are not a healthier choice.

“Sugar consumption and artificial sweetener consumption is a gradual process,” Marisa Pruitt, dietitian at Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, said. “It’s, a little bit more, a little bit more, until we get to a point where we’re no longer consuming them in moderation.”

The Canadian Medical Association Journal studied 405,907 people on 37 different sweeteners for 10 years.

“We were really interested in the everyday person, who is consuming these products not to lose weight, but because they think it’s the healthier choice, for many years on end,” Meghan Azad, lead author of the review and a research scientist at the University of Manitoba, told NPR.

Part of the study’s conclusion read, “Routine intake of nonnutritive sweeteners may be associated with increased BMI and cardiometabolic risk.”

“There is no clear benefit for weight loss, and there’s a potential association with increased weight gain, diabetes and other negative cardiovascular outcomes,” Azad continued.

One of the flaws in the data was, as experts noted, only seven of the 37 studies were randomized controlled trials (the gold standard in clinical research). Those seven involved 1,003 people, who were documented for an average of only six months.

Another conclusion was that more studies needed to be conducted over a long period of time. Despite the widespread use of artificial sweeteners, for some reason, they have rarely been studied and experts continue to say avoid them until there is better data.

Despite the warnings, however – possibly because of this lack of data – people still see those zero calories in artificial sweeteners and associate it with losing weight. It’s a marketing campaign that’s fooling people, Pruitt said.

“People either tend to consume more of it, or the actual artificially sweetened product are just as risky in terms of weight gain,” she said.

The study also showed the more these sweeteners are consumed, the higher the risk for high blood pressure and diabetes.