6 ms·

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

46 points by prmph 2y ago

paulpauper 2y ago
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. 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.
- smt88 2y ago
  You're ignoring most of the data and mischaracterizing what you did mention. Is this more convincing? > That study also analyzed the blood of more than 4,000 people in the United States and Europe and found that those with the highest levels of erythritol were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    How does one measure "double the risk"? Does that mean if one person in a control group happened to have a stroke in that time period, and now it's two people, that counts as double? Out of 4000? Surely that can't be right.
  - biomcgary 2y ago
    The referenced study's methods did NOT account for the fact that overweight people are more likely to be consuming erythritol and/or on a keto diet. Highly likely to be confounding.
  - jwbwater 2y ago
    This is not more convincing because the human body produces erythritol endogenously so high erythritol blood levels may be another effect of the health problems that cause heart attacks and strokes, rather than the cause. To prove causation they would have to track each subjects consumption of erythritol rather than their blood levels.
- nabla9 2y ago
  n=1 can be important if the effect size is good. What makes this n=10 (per group) is interesting and not insignificant is that there is 100% response for blood platelets "enhanced stimulus-dependent release of the platelet dense granule marker serotonin (P<0.0001 for TRAP6 [thrombin activator peptide 6] and P=0.004 for ADP) and the platelet α-granule marker CXCL4 (C-X-C motif ligand-4; P<0.0001 for TRAP6 and P=0.06 for ADP)" There are other studies n = 1,157, n = 2,149, n = 833 and article links to some of them. See my other comment to see better discussion and links to studies.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    That person could have other unknown problems though... I find it hard to believe that 1 person can ever be enough to quantify anything.
    - nabla9 2y ago
      If you give one person rare substance X and that person dies 40 minutes later, it's enough. P < 0.000001 or at least, because people dying in 40 min time period for unrelated reason is really rare. This study was an experiment (P<0.0001) that directly observed blood coagulation markers. Drink -> coagulation.
- aidenn0 2y ago
  It's still an improvement on top of studies that just used serum levels (your body can generate some sugar alcohols, so may not be as closely related to consumption as one would think).
nabla9 2y ago
Here is good discussion about sweeteners from Derek Lowe: Trouble With Erythritol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol Sugar Substitutes Surprise https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sugar-substitutes-surprise https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sugar-substitutes-... And Now Xylitol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol 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. > .... 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. >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't have the gut-fermentation aspect the way you do with the quantities of sugar alcohols that are needed. >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. >No, for bad effects coming from artificial sweeteners, I would look to just kinds of things we'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're there at all (the glucose tolerance results are in need of this for more validation, I should add). Let's find out what's going on.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  > aspartame is probably the least harmful I'm not doubting you, but it's interesting because this is the only one that gives me noticeable problems, although for decades I had no issue with it. Then one day it just started where any time I try to drink a diet soda (with aspartame), I now get massive headaches... no idea why.
urbandw311er 2y ago
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.
- dawnerd 2y ago
  Allulose is looking better every day, so many more upsides with very few negatives (mainly expensive)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
notepad0x90 2y ago
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?
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  They do the best they can, but it’s actually impossible to do the real scientific method with human participants without going all Frankenstein crazy. Keep in mind these are relatively minor effects, kind of like how not walking for at least an hour a day will shorten your total lifespan by a measurable bit, but people are living so long that only a small number care.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  Sure, they might, but I think it could be equally likely that many people who drink it just want to lose weight or not have so much actual sugar, not that they're necessarily already engaging in unhealthy habits.
- Etheryte 2y ago
  I'm not sure if the premise holds. Most of the people I know who use sugar replacements or consume products with them are from the fitness crowd.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  Here's [1] a biochemist talking about an erythritol study (didn't check if it's the same one, but it's the same claimed symptom). They controlled for the obvious risk factors (though with the usual caveats that controlling for things is hard), and they have a claimed mechanism of action: > But we seem to have spotted a toxic effect now. This latest paper shows that plasma erythritol levels actually make a good predictor of major cardiovascular trouble (heart attack/MI, stroke, CV-associated deaths). In 1,157 patients volunteers undergoing three-year longitudinal evaluation, the patients in the highest quartile of plasma erythritol concentration were very strong outliers for CV events. That correlation holds up after controlling for all sorts of other dietary and physical variables (weight, age, gender, known cardiovascular risk factors, and more). And on top of that, the authors demonstrate a surprising but extremely plausible explanation for these findings: erythritol, in both in vitro and in vivo assays, enhances platelet aggregation. > ...I myself will be studiously avoiding it from here on until someone can convince me it’s safe. You may feel similarly after looking at the evidence. There are also other studies (same chemist in [2]) claiming the same effect for xylitol, another related sugar alcohol. ----- [1] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol [2] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol
dawnerd 2y ago
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.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  Why would you need to consume any erythitol at all to be on a keto diet anyway? Doesn't keto mean no or few carbs or no simple carbs or something like that? You can just focus on eating animal proteins, fats, fiber (vegetables) etc. Not sure where sweetener comes into it? You keep linking "low carb" with "artificial sugars" but I don't think it takes any particular self control to just cut sweeteners of both the natural and artificial kind out. I can understand if you have some specific recipes that are sweet that you loved from before keto and wanted to just recreate them, but why bother? Why not just switch to recipes that don't need it at all and avoid the hassle? Eat beans, cabbage, beef, eggs, yogurt, the list is endless. A delicious nutritious varied diet is easy to accomplish without resorting to junk food, processed food, or weird modern chemicals invented recently, so I really don't know why anyone bothers messing around instead of just sticking to the tried and true. What exactly is so disgusting to you about a nice steak with a side of sauteed green beans and pinto beans? Or an omelette made with cream and avocado and tomato and onion and bacon? Can you really just not stand a nice chicken soup with peas, carrots, onions, garlics, and leeks? Maybe a roasted sweet potato if that isn't too carby for your personal understanding of keto? Mmmmm how about a salad from one of those fast casual salad places with lots of veggies and some roasted chicken, beans, and a good fatty dressing and avocado? I'm getting so hungry! I've never done keto but I've tried cutting all sweeteners and simple carbs out many times (allowing whole complex grains and tubers like corn, brown rice, potatos) and it's always been easy and required no more will power than the will power needed to actually cook for yourself (with some takeout as feasible, but that depends on your finances and your location-- much of the USA is tough for eating healthy outside of your kitchen) I'm just baffled by this idea that sweeteners are a necessity. I don't think you have a very broad palate and need to expand it.
Beijinger 2y ago
I saw this news last year: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-023-01504-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-023-01504-6 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: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/
- zamadatix 2y ago
  You say not suited for baking but baked goods is one of the most common use of erythritol and des pretty decent at it IMO.
  - Beijinger 2y ago
    Never head about this. At least, it won't do much for the taste, except sweetness. You need a reducing sugar to make bread. Cooking is nothing but chemistry! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Usually you don't replace sugar 1:1 with sweeteners like Erythritol for these kinds of reasons. Sometimes you mix it with other sweeteners to bulk them up and other times you include other non-sweetening agents combined with recipe adjustments to compensate for the lack of certain effects. In general you usually include more erythritol than you would sugar, even with these other things accounted, to get the same level of sweetness (but not a ridiculous amount more, like 40% or so depending on what else you change). That said it's often impossible to get something people like more than real sugar no matter what you use/do ;). E.g. a Cleveland Clinic article about it which headlines "Erythritol is a common artificial sweetener found in baked goods, beverages, gum and candy" https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2024/08/08/cleveland-clinic-study-adds-to-increasing-evidence-that-sugar-substitute-erythritol-raises-cardiovascular-risk https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2024/08/08/cleveland-cl...
SaintSeiya 2y ago
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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- qwerty456127 2y ago
  > no sugar is miserable This is very subjective > You'll die anyway But you better avoid cancer, dementia etc. Regular consumption of sugar and/or HFCS likely increases the risks.
- nabla9 2y ago
  > no sugar is miserable. Few weeks. After that steamed carrots taste really sweet. If you drink soft drinks that are extremely sour and sweet, then eat chips for maximum salt and fat taste, you are essentially blinding your taste buds. Everything else tastes bland. Everyone can habituate. People have lived long time with eating less sweets than we do today and they were not miserable.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  You don't think there's a medium to be found here? Sure, denying yourself all pleasures isn't a lot of fun. But living entirely in response to those urges is a great way to feel sick and unhealthy all the time. I feel physically way healthier and better at 196 pounds than I did at 328. That's not just because it's likely added many years to my lifespan. It's because I don't have to check the sturdiness of a chair before sitting down, because I don't want to collapse after climbing a staircase, because I can share my body with a sexual partner and not feel ashamed. Self-control does not have to mean self-denial. It means making the trade-offs between different things you want (which often conflict with one another) deliberately and consciously instead of accidentally.
qwerty456127 2y ago
Does it pose any risk to people with healthy cardiovascular systems (perfect BMI)?
layer8 2y ago
Note that this is about erythritol specifically. The actual study: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.124.321019 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.124.321019
trebor 2y ago
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. 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.
sonofhans 2y ago
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. 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. 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.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
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.
jwbwater 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SCaRG3jqS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SCaRG3jqS0 Discussion of this topic from the most balanced and nuanced source I've seen.
plutomeetsyou 2y ago
n = 10, these links probably warrant more research and a larger cohort.
pull_my_finger 2y ago
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 "blends" that are mostly erythritol. Check your labels, even brands like Purevia/Truvia which heavily imply that they are "pure - (ste)via" or "true - (ste)via", have erythritol as their primary ingredient. The same is true for the bigger brands like equal/splenda etc. It's hard to find actual stevia or other sweeteners without erythritol.

46 points by prmph 2y ago

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. 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.

smt88 2y ago
You're ignoring most of the data and mischaracterizing what you did mention. Is this more convincing? > That study also analyzed the blood of more than 4,000 people in the United States and Europe and found that those with the highest levels of erythritol were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  How does one measure "double the risk"? Does that mean if one person in a control group happened to have a stroke in that time period, and now it's two people, that counts as double? Out of 4000? Surely that can't be right.
- biomcgary 2y ago
  The referenced study's methods did NOT account for the fact that overweight people are more likely to be consuming erythritol and/or on a keto diet. Highly likely to be confounding.
- jwbwater 2y ago
  This is not more convincing because the human body produces erythritol endogenously so high erythritol blood levels may be another effect of the health problems that cause heart attacks and strokes, rather than the cause. To prove causation they would have to track each subjects consumption of erythritol rather than their blood levels.
nabla9 2y ago
n=1 can be important if the effect size is good. What makes this n=10 (per group) is interesting and not insignificant is that there is 100% response for blood platelets "enhanced stimulus-dependent release of the platelet dense granule marker serotonin (P<0.0001 for TRAP6 [thrombin activator peptide 6] and P=0.004 for ADP) and the platelet α-granule marker CXCL4 (C-X-C motif ligand-4; P<0.0001 for TRAP6 and P=0.06 for ADP)" There are other studies n = 1,157, n = 2,149, n = 833 and article links to some of them. See my other comment to see better discussion and links to studies.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  That person could have other unknown problems though... I find it hard to believe that 1 person can ever be enough to quantify anything.
  - nabla9 2y ago
    If you give one person rare substance X and that person dies 40 minutes later, it's enough. P < 0.000001 or at least, because people dying in 40 min time period for unrelated reason is really rare. This study was an experiment (P<0.0001) that directly observed blood coagulation markers. Drink -> coagulation.
aidenn0 2y ago
It's still an improvement on top of studies that just used serum levels (your body can generate some sugar alcohols, so may not be as closely related to consumption as one would think).

nabla9 2y ago

Here is good discussion about sweeteners from Derek Lowe: Trouble With Erythritol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol Sugar Substitutes Surprise https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sugar-substitutes-surprise https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sugar-substitutes-... And Now Xylitol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol 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. > .... 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. >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't have the gut-fermentation aspect the way you do with the quantities of sugar alcohols that are needed. >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. >No, for bad effects coming from artificial sweeteners, I would look to just kinds of things we'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're there at all (the glucose tolerance results are in need of this for more validation, I should add). Let's find out what's going on.

ranger_danger 2y ago
> aspartame is probably the least harmful I'm not doubting you, but it's interesting because this is the only one that gives me noticeable problems, although for decades I had no issue with it. Then one day it just started where any time I try to drink a diet soda (with aspartame), I now get massive headaches... no idea why.

urbandw311er 2y ago

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.

dawnerd 2y ago
Allulose is looking better every day, so many more upsides with very few negatives (mainly expensive)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

notepad0x90 2y ago

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?

mensetmanusman 2y ago
They do the best they can, but it’s actually impossible to do the real scientific method with human participants without going all Frankenstein crazy. Keep in mind these are relatively minor effects, kind of like how not walking for at least an hour a day will shorten your total lifespan by a measurable bit, but people are living so long that only a small number care.
ranger_danger 2y ago
Sure, they might, but I think it could be equally likely that many people who drink it just want to lose weight or not have so much actual sugar, not that they're necessarily already engaging in unhealthy habits.
Etheryte 2y ago
I'm not sure if the premise holds. Most of the people I know who use sugar replacements or consume products with them are from the fitness crowd.
rachofsunshine 2y ago
Here's [1] a biochemist talking about an erythritol study (didn't check if it's the same one, but it's the same claimed symptom). They controlled for the obvious risk factors (though with the usual caveats that controlling for things is hard), and they have a claimed mechanism of action: > But we seem to have spotted a toxic effect now. This latest paper shows that plasma erythritol levels actually make a good predictor of major cardiovascular trouble (heart attack/MI, stroke, CV-associated deaths). In 1,157 patients volunteers undergoing three-year longitudinal evaluation, the patients in the highest quartile of plasma erythritol concentration were very strong outliers for CV events. That correlation holds up after controlling for all sorts of other dietary and physical variables (weight, age, gender, known cardiovascular risk factors, and more). And on top of that, the authors demonstrate a surprising but extremely plausible explanation for these findings: erythritol, in both in vitro and in vivo assays, enhances platelet aggregation. > ...I myself will be studiously avoiding it from here on until someone can convince me it’s safe. You may feel similarly after looking at the evidence. There are also other studies (same chemist in [2]) claiming the same effect for xylitol, another related sugar alcohol. ----- [1] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trouble-erythritol [2] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/and-now-xylitol

dawnerd 2y ago

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.

galdosdi 2y ago
Why would you need to consume any erythitol at all to be on a keto diet anyway? Doesn't keto mean no or few carbs or no simple carbs or something like that? You can just focus on eating animal proteins, fats, fiber (vegetables) etc. Not sure where sweetener comes into it? You keep linking "low carb" with "artificial sugars" but I don't think it takes any particular self control to just cut sweeteners of both the natural and artificial kind out. I can understand if you have some specific recipes that are sweet that you loved from before keto and wanted to just recreate them, but why bother? Why not just switch to recipes that don't need it at all and avoid the hassle? Eat beans, cabbage, beef, eggs, yogurt, the list is endless. A delicious nutritious varied diet is easy to accomplish without resorting to junk food, processed food, or weird modern chemicals invented recently, so I really don't know why anyone bothers messing around instead of just sticking to the tried and true. What exactly is so disgusting to you about a nice steak with a side of sauteed green beans and pinto beans? Or an omelette made with cream and avocado and tomato and onion and bacon? Can you really just not stand a nice chicken soup with peas, carrots, onions, garlics, and leeks? Maybe a roasted sweet potato if that isn't too carby for your personal understanding of keto? Mmmmm how about a salad from one of those fast casual salad places with lots of veggies and some roasted chicken, beans, and a good fatty dressing and avocado? I'm getting so hungry! I've never done keto but I've tried cutting all sweeteners and simple carbs out many times (allowing whole complex grains and tubers like corn, brown rice, potatos) and it's always been easy and required no more will power than the will power needed to actually cook for yourself (with some takeout as feasible, but that depends on your finances and your location-- much of the USA is tough for eating healthy outside of your kitchen) I'm just baffled by this idea that sweeteners are a necessity. I don't think you have a very broad palate and need to expand it.

Beijinger 2y ago

I saw this news last year: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-023-01504-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-023-01504-6 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: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/

zamadatix 2y ago
You say not suited for baking but baked goods is one of the most common use of erythritol and des pretty decent at it IMO.
- Beijinger 2y ago
  Never head about this. At least, it won't do much for the taste, except sweetness. You need a reducing sugar to make bread. Cooking is nothing but chemistry! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Usually you don't replace sugar 1:1 with sweeteners like Erythritol for these kinds of reasons. Sometimes you mix it with other sweeteners to bulk them up and other times you include other non-sweetening agents combined with recipe adjustments to compensate for the lack of certain effects. In general you usually include more erythritol than you would sugar, even with these other things accounted, to get the same level of sweetness (but not a ridiculous amount more, like 40% or so depending on what else you change). That said it's often impossible to get something people like more than real sugar no matter what you use/do ;). E.g. a Cleveland Clinic article about it which headlines "Erythritol is a common artificial sweetener found in baked goods, beverages, gum and candy" https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2024/08/08/cleveland-clinic-study-adds-to-increasing-evidence-that-sugar-substitute-erythritol-raises-cardiovascular-risk https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2024/08/08/cleveland-cl...

SaintSeiya 2y ago

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.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
qwerty456127 2y ago
> no sugar is miserable This is very subjective > You'll die anyway But you better avoid cancer, dementia etc. Regular consumption of sugar and/or HFCS likely increases the risks.
nabla9 2y ago
> no sugar is miserable. Few weeks. After that steamed carrots taste really sweet. If you drink soft drinks that are extremely sour and sweet, then eat chips for maximum salt and fat taste, you are essentially blinding your taste buds. Everything else tastes bland. Everyone can habituate. People have lived long time with eating less sweets than we do today and they were not miserable.
rachofsunshine 2y ago
You don't think there's a medium to be found here? Sure, denying yourself all pleasures isn't a lot of fun. But living entirely in response to those urges is a great way to feel sick and unhealthy all the time. I feel physically way healthier and better at 196 pounds than I did at 328. That's not just because it's likely added many years to my lifespan. It's because I don't have to check the sturdiness of a chair before sitting down, because I don't want to collapse after climbing a staircase, because I can share my body with a sexual partner and not feel ashamed. Self-control does not have to mean self-denial. It means making the trade-offs between different things you want (which often conflict with one another) deliberately and consciously instead of accidentally.

qwerty456127 2y ago

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

layer8 2y ago

Note that this is about erythritol specifically. The actual study: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.124.321019 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.124.321019

trebor 2y ago

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. 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.

sonofhans 2y ago

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. 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. 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.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

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.

jwbwater 2y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SCaRG3jqS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SCaRG3jqS0 Discussion of this topic from the most balanced and nuanced source I've seen.

plutomeetsyou 2y ago

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

pull_my_finger 2y ago

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 "blends" that are mostly erythritol. Check your labels, even brands like Purevia/Truvia which heavily imply that they are "pure - (ste)via" or "true - (ste)via", have erythritol as their primary ingredient. The same is true for the bigger brands like equal/splenda etc. It's hard to find actual stevia or other sweeteners without erythritol.