Erythritol, a widely used sugar substitute found in many low-carb and sugar-free products, may not be as harmless as once believed. New research from the University of Colorado Boulder reveals that even small amounts of erythritol can harm brain blood vessel cells, promoting constriction, clotting, and inflammation—all of which may raise the risk of stroke.
So what brand is this stuff sold under so that I can speedrun that stroke?
Truvia in the US.
Cool, I hope they sell it by the pound.
Here in Denmark I’ve seen nearly every sugar free ice-cream use it. There’s also a number of chewing gums too.
In America, it’s usually branded as “sugar alcohol”, and is found in many sweeteners as an additive.
Don’t the food labels go into any more detail than that?
The authors caution that their study was a laboratory study, conducted on cells, and larger studies in people are needed.
Ok, nice to know, moving on.
There are other studies using humans, see https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/erythritol-cardiovascular-events
This sugar substitute is going to be the asbestos of sweeteners in the next few decades. And I find it remarkable it is in so many foods.
Awesome. Drink sugar free energy drink, have stroke.
I’ve never seen an energy drink with erythritol
I took a look at the two most famous colas and two fake colas, and the only sweeteners I was able to find were aspartame, acesulfame K, and sucralose. No sign of erythritol. I wonder if I’ve ever even seen a beverage with that stuff in it. However, I have seen bags of it sold in supermarkets, so apparently it isn’t restricted in that sense.
No sign of erythritol.
It’s significantly more common in baked goods (because it’s stable under oven temperatures), candy (gum, chocolate, ice cream) and extremely more common in “fitness” branded alternative like low calorie yogurt, low calorie peanut butter, and so on.
I don’t consume many sugar-free products, except Coke Zero Sugar. Not Coke Zero, but Coke Zero SUGAR. They are two separate products (which taste significantly different), and even servers in restaurants often don’t know the difference. They’ve got to be phasing out the Zero in favor of the Zero SUGAR, became ZS tastes far better.
Anyhoo, I’ve been wondering about the artificial sweetener they must be using for them, and now I’m wondering if it’s this stuff. Your post seems to indicate that I’m in the clear.
Just read the label or look it up… What the fuck is this “I’m just gonna decide on it being this way without even lifting a finger even though all the info is readily available”? If it is that sweetener you’re great proof that it does indeed damage brain cells and if not…then you’re just this dumb naturally.
Not dumb, just don’t care. One advantage to getting old is that the dangerous stuff that takes years to kill you won’t have the time to get you before you die anyway, so you can go wild. If it tastes better, I’ll drink it. It’ll kill me in 30 years? Yeah, but I’ll be dead in 20, and it tastes good, so I don’t care.
I have seen a few people who are similar to that become old; struggling for decades with damage done to their bodies when younger.
I am not judging others , just remarking the survival rate is high
Ah, yes, it must not be common just because you randomly looked at two products. This is like saying “I just looked up two of the most famous people ever and both are white so therefore it means that non-white famous people don’t exist”.
Taken from top result on google, so obviously not the best source, with that said
Seeing “sugar alcohols” in the ingredient list may be the only clue that erythritol is present in the food.
So you can’t necessarily even find it without some serious digging, so it doesn’t matter if they picked 2 or 100 examples, if they don’t clearly state it anyway.
aspartame
ethrthiol isnt that common, its more associated with stevia substitute, it has well known side effects of causing GI problems in sensitive people.(might be useful for constipate dpeople.)
Where I am at (Texas) I find it in many sugar free yoghurts
I’m beginning to think this must be one of those EU things. I couldn’t find a single yogurt like that in my local supermarket.
Reading more of the comments here, from Spain and Denmark, it seems it is in other food items in the EU; perhaps there are better regulations with yogurt?
Just another thing to check labels for, none of the drinks I have contain it which is good
Interesting thing about most sugar substitutes is they actually kill mouth & gut microbiome.
Any evidence for this in Stevia or Monk Fruit?
here’s a pretty good meta-analysis I found of various studies of stevia affecting bacteria in vitro and in vivo
the conclusion this paper comes to seems to be “depends on the species and strain of bacteria”
so just like pretty much anything you eat then.
yes, but I think it warrants further study. some GI issues are related to one or just a few bacterial strains being unbalanced, so it could be extremely useful in treating gut microbiome imbalances to know which strains are negatively impacted by specific sweeteners
conversely if we found any specific sweetener to have a bacteriostatic or bactericidal effect on a strain that is pathological when overly populated (e.g. H. pylori), that could be a super easy way for some people to prevent chronic flare-ups
ethrythiol is often mixed with these two, but there are product with solely stevia in it if your interested.
I also don’t have any studies, but I am aware of xylitol being used in toothpaste, chewing gum, etc., usually with the “assists in the prevention of tooth decay” type of tagline.
Xylitol is different from erythritol, but both are “sugar alcohols” so further study would be needed
I believe that is just because chewing gum increases salivation which helps keep bacteria in check
No. I don’t have any studies on hand, but the data that I’m aware of says that stevia is one of the small few that actually helps your gut biome. However, too high of a quantity can lead to other issues (I think related to the heart).
Erithrol is the sweetener derived from monkfruit.
Comes from corn usually
I did a couple searches and I didn’t see that mentioned. In my searches I read that monk fruit so like 250x sweeter than sugar, so erythritol is used as a “bulking agent” for monk fruit. So I guess they use it to dilute monk fruit and make it more manageable? Idk, I’ve been consuming both for quite a while and this is news to me, going to have to learn more about both.
Stevia is often blended with it but only lists in the ingredients.
it’s also often blended with dextrose which is SUPER annoying if you’re trying to do specialized baking or diets
I don’t know about baking, but avoiding random other stuff blended in is why I get my stevia as a liquid – the one I use only has water, stevia extract, and a couple of preservatives.
I’ve checked store brands
www.fooducate.com/product/Sweet-Additions-Stevia/7D892B72-6914-11E1-AFF9-1231380C18FB
https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/373190/wt1
https://www.fooducate.com/product/Kroger-Stevia-Blend/B5C6A580-5826-11E2-A40C-1231381A0463
ETA: in the raw lists dextrose
its either dextrose, or maltodextrin, which are basically sugar with extra steps.
That seems like an impressively blanket statement when there’s literally dozens of sugar substitutes that are all wildly chemically different. Insane that all of them would kill your mouth and gut microbiome even when they often work in fundamentally different ways.
I thought xylitol was good for gut biome
Maybe the ultimate answer will turn out to be JUST EAT LESS FUCKING SUGAR.
Add the fucking shit to the headline: Spoiler: it’s Erythritol
God damn it, I’ve been using this a lot. It’s almost flavorless except sweet and doesn’t take much to sweeten a large amount of water. I’ve been using the Truvia packets one in a large bottle of water with 1/8 of a teaspoon of crystalized lime or orange ( from a brewer supply co). All the other ones seem to have a chemical aftertaste to me.
Oh well, the second best time to stop is now I suppose.
You probably weren’t taking in enough to do any real damage, but even so - good idea to stop now.
I’m eyeing my waterbottle full of it right now
gonna have to dump it out, super sad, I’m almost out of crystalized lime :(
This seems interesting because they did some research in the actual mechanism that could create a cause-effect relation. Still need to be repeated to justify legal changes but that’s a good start.
Much better than this “correlation” studies that say nothing. Like the ones saying “people who doesn’t drink any alcohol die sooner that people who drink a cup of wine each day”, that’s totally faulty for a lot of evident reasons. And until now most artificial sweeteners studies were like that “people who use artificial sweeteners tend to have more health issues”, like with the drink is reasonable to assume and consider that people who do such dietary changes is more likely to already have an underlying health issue that they are trying to cope with and it’s obviously more in risk that healthy people that doesn’t feel the need to control their diet.
As I said this study seems a little more promising as they did research on the actual mechanisms on which the health issues may happen. I hope it gets repeated enough times and, if needed, the product would be banned or properly labeled.
Damn it it’s in Celsius. Glad I don’t drink it often.
I always told my buddy who was dieting in college that getting fake sugar sodas isn’t the solution, it’s to stop drinking soda…
Not even that, find something healthy that scratches the itch. Your body indicates it wants energy (unless your addicted in which case its the microbiome or something), get it some berries or throw them in some water with lemon juice
I’ve found that a lot of times when I’m craving something sweet, what I actually want is water. It seems my brain associates sweetness (such as from fruit) with hydration. When I can, I’ll have some fruit. But when fruit’s unavailable, I know I just have to drink more water.
erythritol was always a not so favored ingredient for me due to the weird cooling mouthfeel and GI effects
now if it turns out that allulose is bad for you, I’m going to be SO UPSET.
Well shit I use it daily for my coffee and home-made milk tea. Reading all this stuff coming to light about sugar substitutes is gonna make me just go back to regular sugar or maybe coconut sugar, and I’ll just control my intake.
Honestly, I’ve had better luck just getting higher quality tea and cutting sugar from morning beverages entirely. (I don’t drink coffee, but low quality teas tend to become bitter, which required sugar. Higher quality teas never become bitter)
These days, I’m cutting sugar across the board. Shredded wheat with frozen raspberries tastes better than honey bunches of oats anyways. And the sugar I’m eating is pretty much just for fun, like pie or ice cream. No reason to accidentally ingest 28g of sugar in a breakfast bar that doesn’t even taste that good.
Never got why coffee needs sugar. Its supposed to be bitter. If its too bitter then you may add milk. But sugar? That doesn’t belong in coffee.
You can use Stevia. It’s a natural product, zero calories. There is a more expensive option in monk fruit as well. I live on Stevia. It’s easily available in groceries and stores, and reasonably priced too.
I do use Stevia. The thing is, all the stevia products I see at the grocery store are laced with erythritol. Does the product you consume exclusively use stevia only?
I buy stand alone stevia product, and never buy drinks or baked goods in the store. I make them myself at home. I have not been able to find stevia-made drinks or foods like ice cream here so I just don’t consume them. It’s summer, and I’d love to have some ice cream once in a while but I don’t.
Sorry, I meant I buy stand-alone stevia but all the options like Truvia and the store brand variant have erythritol in their ingredients. Which brand do you use?
I use generic 100% stevia. It is a shame branded ones contain erythritol. You should be able to get them on amazon if you can’t find it in a store.
stevia is not a natural product. there is indeed a plant named stevia and it can be used as a sweetener. Stevia that you buy at the store is chemically produced and is derived through a complex process that uses petroleum based chemistry to extract the chemicals from the plant.
raw sugar has far less environmental impact than buying stevia. if you truly want a sugar alternative grow your own sugar beets. it’s literally raw sugar(sucrose).
What even uses this stuff? I only see Acesulfam-k, Sucralose, Stevia.
Edit: i’m european.
It’s commonly sold mixed with stevia or monk fruit
Lot of things. Here in Spain I have a big box of sweetener little packages that have “STEVIA” la el big but it’s 96% eritriol and only 3% stevia.
Here in Denmark I’ve seen that substance used in gum and sugar free ice-cream.
Brand names in the US are Swerve and Truvía. I don’t think it gets added to much in junk food factories, but it is available in packets for tea and such.
Except for those who are diabetic, why would you even choose to eat/drink “sugar-free” food with sugar substitute?That doesn’t even make any sense… Are people that stupid?
stop industrial sugar based drinks/food completely ! And I know this takes probably away more than 80% of the things you find in stores, but do people still didn’t realized that sugar is add as addictive ingredient? Some claim sugar can be as addictive as cocain…
I have seen kids drinking coke at a very young age and I can assure you, those substances are not going easy on your brain !!
https://www.mlb.com/cut4/young-fan-has-the-absolute-best-time-with-her-cotton-candy-c200177238
And peeps are just laughing and having fun while the drug kicks in… People are just dumb…
Issue is, the same people who push the narrative of “sweetener bad” are either pushing carnivore diet because “humans have canine teeth”, or think diabetic people can still eat cane sugar and/or honey.
Meth is bad, Methadone is better then meth - but is not good. People who are not trying to kick a Meth habit shouldn’t be taking Methadone.
Artificial sweeteners are a tool, but they are not without their downsides.
Oh you’re one of those “sugar is a drug” type nonsense spewers.
Might as well go all the way and say oxygen and water are drugs too.
Why not just say, “Popular sugar substitute, erythritol…” in the title?
I mean we both know the answer is for clicks
