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By Melissa Tennen, HealthAtoZ writer
You were born to love sweetness. It's innate - a biological cue to help your body get the energy it needs. The sweet taste you crave can be found in everything from fruit to chocolate.
Sugar is fine. But the trouble is we often get too much. To help curb that, some people turn to artificial sweeteners - aspartame (Nutrasweet® and Equal®), sucralose (Splenda®) and saccharine (Sweet 'N Low®). This year, about 180 million adult Americans will consume low-calorie, sugar-free beverages and foods, according to the Calorie Control Council.
The list of products is familiar: diet sodas, sugar-free drinks, desserts like frozen yogurt and light ice cream, and sugar-free gum. As you sip another diet soda, the burning question on your mind may be, "what's safe?"
The government says all approved artificial sweeteners - including saccharine, aspartame and sucralose - are considered safe in moderate doses.
You probably have heard of saccharine and its possible link with bladder cancer, and you probably remember those warnings on diet sodas and sugar-free gum: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharine which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."
Scary stuff. But people drank it anyway because it was the only non-calorie sweetener on the market for decades. In 2000, the government took it off the list of known carcinogens - things that cause cancer in humans. So, too, went the warnings on the packages. Research showed people who consumed moderate amounts of saccharine did not have a higher risk of bladder cancer than anyone else. However, the National Cancer Institute warned that heavy users of saccharine, like those drinking two or more 8-ounce servings of diet soda daily, actually did have a higher risk of bladder cancer. Saccharine is 200 to 700 times sweeter than sugar.
"Other sugar substitutes have good safety track records, but using saccharine occasionally probably does not pose a serious health risk," says Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian with the American Dietetic Association.
Then came the FDA's approval of aspartame in 1981. Aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar and is found in 6,000 foods. Tests showed the additive did not cause cancer in laboratory animals. However, people became worried about the sweetener in the 1990s when a report suggested an increase in the incidence of brain tumors. Health experts pored through statistics from the National Cancer Institute and found the incidence of brain tumors actually started rising eight years before aspartame was introduced.
Sass explains the FDA sets something called the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for anything that is added to foods, such as sweeteners. This is a kind of threshold designed to tell food manufacturers and consumers how much may be too much.
"A 12-ounce can of diet soda contains about 225 milligrams of aspartame and a packet of Equal provides about 40 milligrams. In order to reach the ADI, a 150-pound adult would have to ingest about 15 diet sodas or 85 packets of Equal each day," Sass says.
In the late 1990s, sucralose was approved by the FDA. It's made from sugar but passes through the body without being digested
After reviewing more than 110 studies in humans and animals, the FDA concluded this sweetener does not cause cancer or any other harm in humans.
"Because sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, you probably won't need to use enough to cause a reaction. However, as with the others, if a person doesn't feel comfortable using it, they can avoid it," Sass says.
And for those of you who want the tried and true - good old fashioned sugar? Sass says there's really no difference between sugars in terms of calories and taste - whether refined, raw, brown, molasses or honey. Just remember: moderation is key.
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External Source
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The American Dietetic Association
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This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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