Erythritol: Be Careful of Your Artificial Sweetener Choice
I have written extensively about the dangers of artificial and non-nutritive sweeteners, for example:
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER ASPARTAME CAUSES ANXIETY
The major artificial and non-nutritive sweeteners are aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-potassium, neotame, saccharin, and xylitol. Additional non-nutritive sweeteners that are generally considered safe for consumption are stevia and monk fruit.
With respect to stevia it is critically important to understand what you are buying given that almost no commercial non-nutritive sweetener labelled as "stevia" contains the actual non-nutritive sweetener that is beneficial from the stevia plant (Stevia rebaudiana). Read my earlier post regarding this plant:
The beneficial non-nutritive sweetener in stevia is rebaudioside A which is 250-300 times as sweet as sucrose which is the natural sugar in sugar beets and sugar cane. Although rebaudioside A contains glucose attached to steviol, clinical studies have demonstrated that the consumption of the compound does not alter blood glucose homeostasis.
Turns out that essentially ALL commercial products that are labeled as being stevia or containing stevia actually have the sugar alcohol, erythritol, as the non-nutritive sweetener.
The adulteration of stevia extracts with erythritol is not exclusive as most products that are sold as monk fruit extract are likewise essentially all erythritol.
New research published in the prestigious journal, Nature Medicine, demonstrates that erythritol consumption increases ones risk for cardiovascular disease:
In addition to this report, there is ample evidence that the consumption of artificial sweeteners, such as those listed above, are associated with overweight and obese conditions, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, the latter being identified as major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE).
When added to processed foods the levels of erythritol are on the order of 1,000-fold higher than what occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables. This allows for high levels of erythritol to be present in the circulation.
Within the vasculature, a major effect of erythritol is a dose-dependent enhancement of platelet activation. Platelets are byproducts of megakaryocytes that contain numerous compounds necessary for the activation of other platelets and promotion of the process of blood coagulation. The inappropriate enhancement of platelet activation will lead to increased blood clotting in the vasculature resulting in an increased risk for atherosclerotic plaque formation and subsequent coronary artery occlusion and thromboembolic events such as pulmonary embolism.
TAKE HOME: Stay away from all artificial sweeteners as well as reduce your intake of sucrose sweetened processed foods for a healthy longer life.
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