This article is exactly why I prefer reading the abstracts from primary research articles. The title here is overly suggestive, it is way too wordy, and moreover attempts to suggest more than there might be: (use of the word "harm" in "harmless" rather than something more direct). A better title would be "artificial sweetener may affect blood sugar and XYZ", and it could have summarized the findings in 1500 words instead of 4600. I realize it's a bit unkosher to criticize the article itself here but c'mon....this is over the top.
You're right and the wording can lead for some to evoke existing implicit (or explicit!) biases one might have (like I do! But I didn't need research to tell me the stuff tastes nasty :D)
The entirety of journalism these days hinges on biased language to push narratives. There is no neutrality in journalism now, and I don't know enough about its history to say whether there ever was any.
This was a frustrating read. The article freely used the term "sweeteners" but without making the distinction between artificial sweeteners (saccharin, aspartame) and natural-derived sweeteners (stevia, xylitol). Later in the article, the term "artificial sweeteners" imply that all sweeteners are problematic (including natural-derived sweeteners).
There are more natural-derived sweeteners now available, although they may be heavily processed. Examples of natural-derived sweeteners: stevia, xylitol, inulin, erythritol, monk fruit extract.
The following paragraph from the article is sloppy:
> "A couple of studies suggested that daily use of a sweetener called stevia could reduce a child’s risk of getting tooth decay, but in another study, children who consumed more than 250ml of artificially sweetened drinks a day were even more likely to suffer from toothache than those who drank sugary soft drinks or energy drinks, even after adjusting for levels of tooth brushing and economic privilege."
The linked study (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/1753-6...) does not mention stevia at all. The linked study refers to "sugar-sweetened beverages". But misleadingly the article author start with stevia (a natural-derived sweetener) then switches to the term "artificially sweetened" and links to the study. The reader is left the implication is that all sweeteners cause toothache.
There is zero inherent difference between natural vs artificial chemicals. It’s only a question of what effect each chemical has have on the body as “natural” chemicals run the full range from mandatory to lethal in minute quantities.
One import distinction is that artificial chemicals were not part of the environment our bodies evolved in, whereas some of the natural chemicals were. Furthermore, most of the natural chemicals would be more closely related to other chemicals we did evolve in contact with. The ones that are less novel to our bodies are less likely (in a very general sense!) to cause trouble.
For example, cyanide is otherwise lethal but widely present in plants, so our bodies are actually pretty good at dealing with it.
So along that axis you could probably lump stevia and aspartame closer together, while sorbitol (which is very much naturally occurring) would be much closer to sucrose.
You're implicitly assuming natural compounds are better than artificial ones. That's not necessarily true. It is maybe more likely to be true, since we may have evolved with exposure to the natural chemical, and our bodies may handle it better. But that's equivalent to saying men are more likely to earn more than women. True on the whole, but nearly completely useless when looking at a particular individual. You really have to examine each compound on its own merits.
> You really have to examine each compound on its own merits.
Isn't this the crux of the issue, that lacking clear predictive models of side-effects (short, mid, and long term) it is better to err on the side of caution with this heuristic. If we can definitively assert outcome, then yes, go with the science.
Also, disagreement regarding equating a cultural phenomena (demographics & earnings) with a biological one. This is an error which leads to false analogies and conclusions.
> A couple of studies suggested that daily use of a sweetener called stevia could reduce a child’s risk of getting tooth decay, but in another study, children who consumed more than 250ml of artificially sweetened drinks a day were even more likely to suffer from toothache than those who drank sugary soft drinks or energy drinks, even after adjusting for levels of tooth brushing and economic privilege
Sugar isn't the only thing that causes tooth decay. Isn't it also the acids in the drink? I'd guess if you currently drink soda flavored with sugar and you're looking to reduce tooth decay, switching to water would be far more effective than switching to an artificially flavored soda.
Acid definitely does. Sugar is bad for your teeth because it feeds bacteria that consume sugar and produce acid. It's the acid that erodes the enamel. The plaque (where these bacteria live) is not influenced by acid, AFAIK. Perhaps there's a dental expert around to enlighten us?
Acid wears away the enamel, which allows plaque to get near the actual tooth, which in turn is fuelled by sugar and burrows in to the core of the tooth -> Ow.
No acid -> tooth decay has a harder time getting through enamel.
Acid, but no sugar -> enamel wears off and tooth decay will eventually get in unless you clean your teeth regularly and/or eat a very low sugar diet (keto-levels).
I am a diet soda addict and I am not a scientist, but personally I think articles like this tend to bury this point:
> One problem with sweeteners in the diet of children, Sibson says, is that the more children consume them, the more they develop a sweet palate and therefore crave sweetness in all its forms, with or without sugar
Drinking sweet things gives you a sweet tooth! If we assume sweeteners are perfectly safe, wouldn't we still expect people who e.g. drink sweetened drinks instead of plain water to be more likely to gain weight overall, because they have a preference for sweet things and lots of sweet things have calories?
Personally I'm not worried about it: my high consumption of sweetened drinks has not stopped me losing weight by the conventional method of eating less. There is another ingredient in soda that's more problematic (caffeine can mess up your sleep, and if you sleep badly it's a lot easier to gain weight).
Not directly related to the article, but I just wanted to share my experience with using artificial sweeteners to overcome a sugar addiction. Based on the recommendation from my fitness coach, I found that aspartame-based sweeteners were really helpful in reducing and eventually eliminating added sugars from my diet. I used a FreeStyle Libre 3 sensor to monitor my glucose levels and was surprised to find that the Monster drinks I drank whenever a craving kicked in didn't have any effect on my glucose levels.
It took me about three weeks to get rid of the sugar habit, and now I only consume small amounts of sugar through an apple a day and protein powder in my morning porridge. I'm also back to water only. I figured I'd share in case it could help anyone else out there struggling with strong sugar cravings.
One thing that might help is sparkling water. I grew up with an an unhealthy daily soda habit and eventually kicked it but would still crave a Coke after and couple of weeks. What helped me kick that is drinking lots of plain sparkling water (Pierrer/La Croix). I think what I was really looking for was that carbonated “kick” after all.
Even at establishments that don't serve bottled sparkling water, you can usually get carbonated "soda water" from the dispensers. This is also how I kicked my soda habit!
Yes, I only drank the Monster Zero Ultra drink (the white can). It was the only one that didn't have that classic energy drink taste, but it reminded me more of a sprite.
One of very few saved comments I have on HN is on this topic.
> I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be done in Neotame-like quantities.
There’s no need to invoke the microbiome to come up with a general mechanism by which artificial sweeteners could have effects on those who eat them: you have taste receptors in your digestive tract!
Thanks for the very interesting article. But man, is it filled with needlessly complex language.
> The upper gastrointestinal tract is well-endowed with taste and fat receptors, with sweet taste being detected, as elsewhere, by a heterodimer of the taste 1 receptor (T1R) family, T1R2/T1R3. These receptors have been localized to intestinal brush and enteroendocrine cells, and are coupled with α-gustducin as the α-subunit of the G protein (Fig. 1). They recognize sugars, d-amino acids, sweet proteins, and artificial sweeteners. Of importance to a possible role in the incretin response, these receptors are colocalized with glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and L cells containing peptide YY (PYY) and K cells containing glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) (3). Incidentally, fatty acid responsive GPRs are also coupled to GLP-1 release, but are found predominantly in the colon (5).
Can be restated in plain English: Cells in the GI tract between one's mouth and duodenum have similar sweet taste receptors - T1R. Some of these cells are endocrine and store GLP-1, PYY, and GIP (incretin) messenger hormones.
For context, messenger hormones cause changes in cells receptive to them, including the nervous system. Indirectly, these hormones can affect metabolism and feeling of hunger or fullness (this is not in the paper but is known).
The paper then discusses inconsistent (but meaningful) evidence for sweet taste receptors influencing the messenger hormone release and insulin-glycemia response. Notably, the author suggests sucralose sweeteners consumed before carbohydrates might spike postprandial (after-meal) blood sugar and insulin response. However, the extent of this effect could depend on an individual's genetics. The link between messenger hormone release and sweet taste receptors is established because this effect is diminished in vivo in mice lacking specific sweet taste receptors.
So HN, where’s that browser plug-in wrapping that GPT-3 prompt “Rewrite the following text in plain English that a ten year old could understand”, written in Rust?
I'm not a biologist but that doesn't sound that complex for a science paper. Your average CS paper would have a similar level of complexity (if not worse)
The confounding outcome here is profoundly negative. People are being misled into believing a short term benefit of (from the article) around 3 months of weightloss translates across the board into longterm replacement for sugar without risk.
Better to stop wanting to taste sweet things all the time, than wind up type 2 diabetic or risk heart disease.
The right way to avoid the effects of eating too much sugar is not to replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners, but to limit the daily intake of sugar.
I have seen the recommendation that the daily sugar intake should be up to 50 grams, i.e. up to 25 g of fructose.
This seems a plausible value, which is equivalent with 500 g per day of most cultivated fruits, e.g. apples, pears or blueberries, or 300 g per day of the sweetest fruits, e.g. grapes or fresh figs.
The refined sugar is not bad per se, as it is the same substance found in all vegetables, but it is bad because it easily allows its wrong use when food is made which is too sweet and which facilitates the eating of too much sugar every day.
Limiting the daily sugar intake is easy if you cook at home, but it is difficult if you eat industrially-produced food. Unfortunately for those who like them, the first measure to reduce the sugar intake is to stop drinking any industrially-produced beverages.
Indeed. After being abroad for long periods of time, when I return to eat meals in US restaurants, they are soooo salty. We get habituated to strongly flavored foods.
The real diet drug they need to concoct would be one that inhibits that habituation. Sugar or salt saturated foods would taste gross.
Readit News
There are more natural-derived sweeteners now available, although they may be heavily processed. Examples of natural-derived sweeteners: stevia, xylitol, inulin, erythritol, monk fruit extract.
The following paragraph from the article is sloppy:
> "A couple of studies suggested that daily use of a sweetener called stevia could reduce a child’s risk of getting tooth decay, but in another study, children who consumed more than 250ml of artificially sweetened drinks a day were even more likely to suffer from toothache than those who drank sugary soft drinks or energy drinks, even after adjusting for levels of tooth brushing and economic privilege."
The linked study (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/1753-6...) does not mention stevia at all. The linked study refers to "sugar-sweetened beverages". But misleadingly the article author start with stevia (a natural-derived sweetener) then switches to the term "artificially sweetened" and links to the study. The reader is left the implication is that all sweeteners cause toothache.
For example, cyanide is otherwise lethal but widely present in plants, so our bodies are actually pretty good at dealing with it.
So along that axis you could probably lump stevia and aspartame closer together, while sorbitol (which is very much naturally occurring) would be much closer to sucrose.
My youngest daughter is highly allergic to mold, and has to avoid most sour candy just in case because citric acid is grown in mold based bioreactors.
Isn't this the crux of the issue, that lacking clear predictive models of side-effects (short, mid, and long term) it is better to err on the side of caution with this heuristic. If we can definitively assert outcome, then yes, go with the science.
Also, disagreement regarding equating a cultural phenomena (demographics & earnings) with a biological one. This is an error which leads to false analogies and conclusions.
In case you missed the link and discussion in the article, here you are:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35987213/
Sugar isn't the only thing that causes tooth decay. Isn't it also the acids in the drink? I'd guess if you currently drink soda flavored with sugar and you're looking to reduce tooth decay, switching to water would be far more effective than switching to an artificially flavored soda.
No acid -> tooth decay has a harder time getting through enamel.
Acid, but no sugar -> enamel wears off and tooth decay will eventually get in unless you clean your teeth regularly and/or eat a very low sugar diet (keto-levels).
I'm sure neither is healthy, my teeth are browned from coffee, afterall. But I'll take acid over sugar 10/10 times.
> One problem with sweeteners in the diet of children, Sibson says, is that the more children consume them, the more they develop a sweet palate and therefore crave sweetness in all its forms, with or without sugar
Drinking sweet things gives you a sweet tooth! If we assume sweeteners are perfectly safe, wouldn't we still expect people who e.g. drink sweetened drinks instead of plain water to be more likely to gain weight overall, because they have a preference for sweet things and lots of sweet things have calories?
Personally I'm not worried about it: my high consumption of sweetened drinks has not stopped me losing weight by the conventional method of eating less. There is another ingredient in soda that's more problematic (caffeine can mess up your sleep, and if you sleep badly it's a lot easier to gain weight).
It took me about three weeks to get rid of the sugar habit, and now I only consume small amounts of sugar through an apple a day and protein powder in my morning porridge. I'm also back to water only. I figured I'd share in case it could help anyone else out there struggling with strong sugar cravings.
> I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be done in Neotame-like quantities.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440236#9440566
https://diabetesjournals.org/diabetes/article/62/10/3336/174...
> The upper gastrointestinal tract is well-endowed with taste and fat receptors, with sweet taste being detected, as elsewhere, by a heterodimer of the taste 1 receptor (T1R) family, T1R2/T1R3. These receptors have been localized to intestinal brush and enteroendocrine cells, and are coupled with α-gustducin as the α-subunit of the G protein (Fig. 1). They recognize sugars, d-amino acids, sweet proteins, and artificial sweeteners. Of importance to a possible role in the incretin response, these receptors are colocalized with glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and L cells containing peptide YY (PYY) and K cells containing glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) (3). Incidentally, fatty acid responsive GPRs are also coupled to GLP-1 release, but are found predominantly in the colon (5).
Can be restated in plain English: Cells in the GI tract between one's mouth and duodenum have similar sweet taste receptors - T1R. Some of these cells are endocrine and store GLP-1, PYY, and GIP (incretin) messenger hormones.
For context, messenger hormones cause changes in cells receptive to them, including the nervous system. Indirectly, these hormones can affect metabolism and feeling of hunger or fullness (this is not in the paper but is known).
The paper then discusses inconsistent (but meaningful) evidence for sweet taste receptors influencing the messenger hormone release and insulin-glycemia response. Notably, the author suggests sucralose sweeteners consumed before carbohydrates might spike postprandial (after-meal) blood sugar and insulin response. However, the extent of this effect could depend on an individual's genetics. The link between messenger hormone release and sweet taste receptors is established because this effect is diminished in vivo in mice lacking specific sweet taste receptors.
Better to stop wanting to taste sweet things all the time, than wind up type 2 diabetic or risk heart disease.
I have seen the recommendation that the daily sugar intake should be up to 50 grams, i.e. up to 25 g of fructose.
This seems a plausible value, which is equivalent with 500 g per day of most cultivated fruits, e.g. apples, pears or blueberries, or 300 g per day of the sweetest fruits, e.g. grapes or fresh figs.
The refined sugar is not bad per se, as it is the same substance found in all vegetables, but it is bad because it easily allows its wrong use when food is made which is too sweet and which facilitates the eating of too much sugar every day.
Limiting the daily sugar intake is easy if you cook at home, but it is difficult if you eat industrially-produced food. Unfortunately for those who like them, the first measure to reduce the sugar intake is to stop drinking any industrially-produced beverages.
The real diet drug they need to concoct would be one that inhibits that habituation. Sugar or salt saturated foods would taste gross.