People trying to lose weight often cut calories by consuming diet drinks, artificially sweetened candy, and other products that contain substitute sugars. But according to a new assessment of the World Health Organization (WHO), those artificial sweeteners don’t seem effective for weight control and, worse, appear to increase long-term risks of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even death.
In accordance with Ars Technicain a guide published on monday, the WHO recommended against using artificial sweeteners to control weight or try to improve general health.
The recommendation applies to healthy children and adults, but is not intended for people with pre-existing diabetes, who may still benefit from the use of artificial sweeteners.
Francesco Branca, WHO Director of Nutrition and Food Safety, said: “Replace free sugars with sugar-free sweeteners does not help with long-term weight control. People should consider other ways to reduce their intake of free sugars, such as eating foods with natural sugars, such as fruit or sugar-free foods and beverages. People should completely reduce sweetness from the diet, starting early in life, to improve their health.”.
The definitive WHO study
For a more extensive look at the effects of using artificial sweeteners, including saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, neotame, advantame, stevia, and stevia derivatives, the experts turned to prospective cohort studies, which tracked outcomes. of health for at least two years to more than 30 years.
Taken together, these studies found that increased use of artificial sweeteners was associated with a 76% higher incidence of obesity.
For type 2 diabetes, people had a 23% higher risk if they consumed the sweeteners in drinks and a 34% higher risk if they had a packaged version of artificial sweeteners added to food and drinks. People with higher sweetener use also had a 32% increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including stroke (19% increased risk) and hypertension (13% increased risk).
Finally, a higher intake of artificial sweeteners was associated with a 10% increased risk of death from any cause and a 19% increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (but there was no increased risk associated with deaths from cancer).
With all the findings, the experts recommended not using sweeteners: “The lack of evidence to suggest that the use of sweeteners is beneficial for body weight or other measures of body fat in the long term, together with possible long-term undesirable effects in the form of increased risk of non-communicable disease and death, outweighed any potential short-term health effects resulting from small reductions in body weight”.