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  |  Eat Right  |  Sugar  |  The artificial sweetener debate
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The artificial sweetener debate

by Dr Wynnie Chan

question
I have recently been visiting an American Weight Watchers website and there was a heated debate on whether or not you should cook with artificial sweeteners. Can you advise? I have used these for years, including sprinkling it on veg for roasting and in soups and desserts. I am now worried that it may be very bad for you.

answer
There are two types of artificial sweeteners, also referred to as sugar substitutes - intense and bulk. Intense sweeteners such as saccharin and aspartame are needed in only very small quantities because they have an intensely sweet flavour - they are about 200-500 times as sweet as sucrose (sugar). Bulk sweeteners include naturally occurring sugars, such as fructose and sugar alcohols like sorbitol and mannitol, which have been extracted and made into an artificial sweetener.

Artificial sweeteners tend to be used by people trying to control their calorie intake as they contain so few. In the late 1970s there was concern over saccharin's safety because some studies showed that it could cause bladder cancer in rats. It was temporarily banned, but was later approved for use again in Europe, while in the US saccharin products still have to carry a safety warning.

The maximum level considered safe is 20 saccharin tablets a day for an adult weighing 60kg. This can easily be exceeded if you rely solely on saccharin sweetened foods and drinks, so it's important to check labels and ensure that this is not the only form of sweetener you use.

As far as aspartame goes, it has been shown in some studies to alter mood and be linked to hyperactivity in children, but these have not been confirmed. Some people with a condition called phenylketonuria - a rare hereditary condition that can cause mental retardation - should not use aspartame. Some studies have shown that sugar alcohols like sorbitol and mannitol can cause stomach cramps, flatulence and diarrhoea when more than 30g a day is consumed.

In the UK, the advice for people who regularly consume products with artificial sweeteners is to choose foods and drinks containing different sweeteners to reduce the risk of exceeding their acceptable daily intake.

Why not chat to other iVillagers about healthy foods on the Eating For Health message board. Take a look at some of the LIVE discussions happening now on the board:

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