Thanks for posting. Sucralose is my daily go to. Time to eliminate.

Likewise: i was very low on any sweeteners but reading the ingredients of my favorite chocolate protein shake powder revealed three suspects: maltodextrose, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium.

All in low amounts: one of the reasons it's my favorite is that it is not over-sweetened, and I noted they had used the tactic of synergy where three small amounts of compatible sweetener added up to less than using only one kind. Also, I do not get the intestinal reactions from this brand that I get from, say, more than a few sugar alcohol candies

Still got me thinking about switching over to unflavored and adding my own cocoa. Fruit is lately my sweetener, and not in jam sized portions, either.

In fact, we got a peach each from our neighbor, who has a friend near a fabulous farmer's market. We told her we'd like two nice fresh ones more than a peach pie this year. I couldn't finish mine! I got halfway through and was satisfied.

So my sugar sensitivity is nice and low. Still, I think we all need to keep this in mind for emergency food. It's not just road trips: I was on five months of bed rest and a good meal that took so little effort, in making, consuming, and cleaning up after, is now one of my must-haves.

And Bob the musician mentioned the unflavored kind he uses. I'd bookmarked it. Time to use the spreadsheet to see that this might save me money, too.

So, some details that most news services are kind of hiding are that the spikes in blood glucose came after consuming glucose (a sugar). Which this isn't really new news. This was observed in other studies.

Only a few sweeteners were tested. And this article doesn't mention the stevia trial which actually lowered blood sugar response.

Erythritol, allulose, stevia are my favorite sweeteners and they're all found naturally in fruits, veggies, and birch.

Do people even use saccharin still? Sad to see sucralose is an issue. Also, think some cancer studies are point to acesulfame and sucralose as possibly carcinogenic. But the details are sketchy in my head.

I think allulose is about as close in taste and cooking properties as you can get to sugar. It works really well with chocolate! Doesn't have any annoying fillers. Erythritol + allulose is a very good combo.

It says "The sweetener packets all contained at least 96 per cent glucose, as the sweeteners are so potent that only a small amount is needed – glucose is used as a bulking agent so the sweeteners can be packaged."

So is it the 4% AS or the 96% glucose that is raising BG ??? I did read the part that tried to explain it away, but why would you even add such a confounding ingredient in such a study? Why not make up liquid forms of each sweetener with plain water? The glucose could be activating receptors causing the AS to behave differently in the body.

The sweeteners can affect the gut biome, but so does glucose. That's why I limit myself to minimal amounts of stevia (a few drops/day) and erythritol (~1 tsp/wk).

Exactly. Recently news broke the Alzheimer's treatment has been going in the WRONG direction for 20 years, and okay, that's science, but I can't help but wonder how much of that is not admitting how much of it might be caused by statins?

I don't mind real science. I do mind being conned.

Which is why I keep my sweeteners rare and safe

Because it's not just the numbers, it's the kind of carbs: at least with me. 10 grams of carbs in raspberries added to a smoothie is not handled the same as 10 grams of carbs in a small portion of an average protein bar. Real food still rules.

I think what gets people in trouble is the concept of relentlessly substituting when their diet was too unbalanced already. Too much flour/sugar substitute likely has less bad effects, but still not good ones.

I am finding high protein/low sugar "keto" treats are doing for DH what they did for me, a helpful way to make the transition and have a quick meal option. Our functional doctor prefers to white-knuckle temptation.

But that gets old, I tell him

If they didn't do the experiment repeatedly, switching the ones who had sucralose or saccharin to the other sweeteners, how do they know for sure that it wasn't just that the ones who happened to get sucralose and saccharin happened have a reaction to the 96+% glucose packets?

Also, even though all non-nutritive sweeteners are extremely concentrated, when they say the packets contained "at least 96% glucose" that means some of the sweeteners are so concentrated that they had to have an even higher percentage of glucose in them. The least concentrated of those sweeteners were 4% of the packet.

Pure sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, pure saccharin is somewhere between 500-600 times sweeter than sugar.

Aspartame is about 1/3 as concentrated at about 200 times sweeter than sugar, and Stevia is also in the low range, from 100-300 times sweeter than sugar (depending on the exact form of stevia - Stevioside, Steviol glycoside, Rebaudioside A, or Steviol)

Someone who is better at math than I am can certainly figure out how much more of the packet needed to be glucose to even out the sweetening power, but since sucralose and saccharin are 2-6 times as sweet as aspartame and stevia, the packets containing those would have needed to be more than 99% glucose to keep the sweetening power of the saccharin or sucralose from becoming overwhelming.

Just a thought though - Even though they didn't get the same results from the group using the pure glucose packets, I wonder how much of the results could have been due to the higher concentration of glucose in the sucralose and aspertame products stimulating a blood sugar response (as well as gut changes) when in combination with those two extremely concentrated sweeteners. Even though the glucose in this experiment is a very small amount, it may not be nearly as unimportant as they would like to think.

My mother never took statins, but had Alzheimers.



On the other hand, she had always eaten a very low fat diet, and ate a LOT of carbs (which increased significantly when her dr insisted that she needed to eat less meat).



Towards the last year or so of her life, she had increased her use of sweets (particularly jelly and jam on her breads) significantly. When she was young, she had always been careful to use only a tiny smear of jelly and jam on breads.



When I made the switch back to a LC diet, I gave up the carbs in stages, a little at a time.



At that point in my life, I just couldn't see myself being successful at giving up everything at once.


I did use some Atkins bars (which back in those days had little or no sugar alcohols in them), which helped with the transition.



I also made some protein bars from things like whey protein and almond butter, as well as treats like LC cheesecake.



Over the years, I came to the realization that I have little to no portion control using those ingredients, so I rarely use them now, or try to make them in such small quantities that portion control is not a problem.



I do have some "treats" I still make using artificial sweeteners, but not many, and usually only the ones that I'm not tempted to go back and make/eat more and more and more.

Amy Berger wrote her book about how high carb eating contributes to Alzheimers, as does statins. Because the problem predated statins, of course, and there are many ways dementia can take place and damage the brain, sadly.

Part of them calling this syndrome Diabetes III is how the insulin resistance keeps fuel from reaching the cells, and they can't function. This might be what goes on with Alzheimer patients craving sweets.

Maybe that is what the brain is signaling, and we aren't listening.

My diet has continuously improved, but as much due to DDF as to Keto or Atkins, maybe more.

Ditto. That was pretty compelling evidence that it's time to give up my Mio and other SF products that contain sucralose.

I've made the jump to ice water and seltzer.

Replacing sucralose in blueberries n cream is more challenging. Just cutting out may be only answer.

Back to munching frozen berries!!

Trader Joe's has a less expensive stevia, allulose blend. But I really like confectioner's erythritol on frozen berries. Also allulose. I should try to powder some allulose in a coffee grinder. Sadly allulose is pretty expensive still.

Thanks Nancy!! Good to know. Will check out Trader Joe's.

After thinking more about it for a while, I'm going to disagree with myself a bit. I don't think the glucose in the packets was a factor, since each packet only had 1 g total weight. Even the sucralose and saccharin packets had no more glucose in them than the packets that were 100% glucose.



Other thoughts:


Since this study was done on those not using any kind of artificial sweeteners in the previous 6 months, my assumption is that they were all eating a fairly standard high carb diet.



That makes me wonder if what's happening is that there's some chemical component/combination in the sucralose and saccharin (not present in the stevia and aspartame) that stimulates the release of excessive amounts of glycogen.



If one assumes they were all eating a standard high carb diet, my question is what happens if they're eating a Keto/LC diet, since there would be very minimal glucose entering the system, and very minimal glycogen storage to draw upon?



Which makes me wonder - if someone new to LC is still in induction, would using sucralose or saccharin help them use up those glycogen stores more quickly?



In the absence of more than very minimal dietary carbs, and once the glycogen stores are used up, how would sucralose or saccharin be able to raise blood sugar at all? Where could the glucose possibly come from that would cause sucralose or saccharin to raise blood sugar?



Testing only those 4 sweeteners also raise the question of in the absence of anything else in the diet that raises blood sugar, what kind of blood glucose response would there be with other types of sweeteners: allulose, Erythritol, xylitol, other sugar alcohols, oligofructose, ace K, monk fruit - I've probably forgotten quite a few of the ones avaiable.