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Popular sugar substitute linked to brain cell damage and stroke risk (www.sciencedaily.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] 4 points 1 year ago (23 children)

Interesting thing about most sugar substitutes is they actually kill mouth & gut microbiome.

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  • [–] 41 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (19 children)

    Any evidence for this in Stevia or Monk Fruit?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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"

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    so just like pretty much anything you eat then.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    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

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Stevia is often blended with it but only lists in the ingredients.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    it's also often blended with dextrose which is SUPER annoying if you're trying to do specialized baking or diets

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    It's probably a lot more manageable as a liquid. I had powdered pure stevia and it would get EVERYWHERE and contaminate random things with horrible levels of sweetness. I think I'll get a liquid next time I need it (e.g. for rounding out allulose to make up for its 70% sweetness compared to sucrose)

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    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).

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  • [+] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    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.

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