Zero calorie sweetener linked to blood clots and heart disease, study finds

This study really annoys me. I'm doing keto and its helped tremendously including consuming a TON of erythitol. The amount of bad press low carb diets and artificial sugars get don't account for the simple fact that - if they didn't exist people like myself would be WAY worse off. I'll keep taking my chances with these sweeteners vs going back to my old eating ways which would 100% send me to the ER from a heart attack or similar.

honest question, people who use zero calorie sweeteners might also be people who were otherwise engaging in unhealthy habits. For example, fast food workers will tell you that regulars order unhealthy items along with "diet coke" typically. I haven't read this research but do they account for biases like this?

Choose your poison: sugar is worse, and no sugar is miserable. You'll die anyway, enjoy whatever you want, however you want, whenever you can. It makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.

Artificial sweeteners are like methadone. Methadone might be less worse for you than heroin, but it’s still something you should avoid if you can.<p>Yes, mainlining pure sugar all day is an awful habit and a fast path to an ugly death. Yes, kicking that habit with an artificial substitute can be effective. But it’s still a short-term solution.<p>The food industry isn’t interested in you kicking any habits, though, just transitioning to another of their products. Unfortunately for us all no food is as magnetic to humans as sugar.

I saw this news last year: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41392-023-01504-6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41392-023-01504-6</a><p>I use a mix of erythritol and xylitol (there is evidence of synergistic effects) to brush my teeth, I use it as a home made mouth wash without swallowing. Not sure how good they are as sweeteners. They are not very sweet and are not suited for baking. Most other artificial sweeteners, except stevia, disrupt your gut microbiome. I think it was this study: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10144565&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10144565&#x2F;</a>

I reserve the right to be spectacle about Big Sugar having something to do with funding this kind of research, BUT if it is true, this does kind of suck. Erythritol seems to be THE non-sugar sweetener atm. They put it in everything. So much so, that 90% of specifically otherwise labeled sweeteners, i.e. stevia, monk fruit, allulose etc, are usually &quot;blends&quot; that are mostly erythritol. Check your labels, even brands like Purevia&#x2F;Truvia which heavily imply that they are &quot;pure - (ste)via&quot; or &quot;true - (ste)via&quot;, have erythritol as their primary ingredient. The same is true for the bigger brands like equal&#x2F;splenda etc. It&#x27;s hard to find actual stevia or other sweeteners without erythritol.

<i>Consuming a drink with erythritol — an artificial sweetener used to add bulk to stevia and monk fruit and to sweeten low-carb keto products — more than doubled the risk of blood clotting in 10 healthy people, according to a new pilot study.</i><p>10 people. not exactly convincing. It reminds me that earlier study about a purported cure for colon cancer which had 8 participants, which no one talks about anymore.

Wait, so they added 30g of erythritol and observed negative impacts? Most the time I see it around 7g plus other sweeteners. It’s almost never alone now.<p>I bet they need to look at 30-45g sugar harder now. Maybe uncover some of that (big sugar suppressed) research that it causes heart disease.

Note that this is about erythritol specifically. The actual study: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;ATVBAHA.124.321019" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;ATVBAHA.124.321019</a>

If true, this is extremely frustrating. While on the Keto diet I researched a whole bunch of “bad” sweeteners based on sugar alcohols that affected your blood sugar level, and erythritol always came out as one of the good guys.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=4SCaRG3jqS0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=4SCaRG3jqS0</a><p>Discussion of this topic from the most balanced and nuanced source I&#x27;ve seen.

Here is good discussion about sweeteners from Derek Lowe:<p>Trouble With Erythritol <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;trouble-erythritol" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;trouble-erythritol</a><p>Sugar Substitutes Surprise <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;sugar-substitutes-surprise" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;sugar-substitutes-...</a><p>And Now Xylitol <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;and-now-xylitol" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;blog-post&#x2F;and-now-xylitol</a><p>It seem that most artificial sweeteners have issues. But interestingly aspartame is probably the least harmful, if not for other reason than being so sweet that you need much less of the molecule, and get always low dose.<p>&gt; .... At any rate, I would regard these studies as reason enough to avoid both of these compounds as sweeteners, and I would extend the caution to the other sugar alcohols as well (maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol, etc.) We really need to understand more about these things, and ditching the sugar-free gummy candies and the like seems like a prudent move.<p>&gt;Naturally, the question comes up about the effects of other artificial sweeteners. I also wrote last year about a study that showed that saccharin and sucralose seem to have unexpected effects on glucose tolerance, but aspartame and stevia did not show this. One difference between some of these and the sugar alcohols is that things like aspartame (and acesulfam-K) are far, far sweeter than sugar and are thus used in much lower amounts. You don&#x27;t have the gut-fermentation aspect the way you do with the quantities of sugar alcohols that are needed.<p>&gt;Note that I am discounting the years of hyperventilating messages about aspartame (in particular) leading to supposedly sweeping epidemics of cancer, autism, seizures and what have you. These are not based on any solid evidence, and after the original trials and forty years on the worldwide market, there would be solid evidence by now if any such things were happening.<p>&gt;No, for bad effects coming from artificial sweeteners, I would look to just kinds of things we&#x27;re talking about now: slight impairments or increases in trouble in areas that many likely customers for lower-calorie foods already would be experiencing trouble with (glucose tolerance, cardiovascular effects). This makes such things harder to spot in a population; you need a good amount of effort in well-powered trials to believe that they&#x27;re there at all (the glucose tolerance results are in need of this for more validation, I should add). Let&#x27;s find out what&#x27;s going on.

Does it pose any risk to people with healthy cardiovascular systems (perfect BMI)?

n = 10, these links probably warrant more research and a larger cohort.

That’s disappointing because zero calorie sweeteners and products that use them are a game changer for those who need to manage calorie intake or glucose levels.