It’s sorbitol.

Copied from another posting of this article:

The headline (and the article for that matter) are very sensationalist and I don’t think they’ve presented this in a balanced way. They are discussing how sorbitol behaves in zebrafish with limited data presented on human biochemistry, and they discuss it in a vacuum without quantifying the amount of sorbitol it takes to cause a problem. Yes, any substance in excess can be harmful, but the amount of sorbitol in food compared to the amount of high fructose corn syrup makes it the substantially lesser evil. The artificial sweeteners are vastly more potent than actual sugar, so you don’t need very much of it to get the same amount of sweetness. High fructose corn syrup is used in massive amounts in food and is much worse for you on the scale that either substance would be consumed.

Sorbitol-degrading Aeromonas bacterial strains convert the sugar alcohol into a harmless bacterial byproduct.

“However, if you don’t have the right bacteria, that’s when it becomes problematic. Because in those conditions, sorbitol doesn’t get degraded and as a result, it is passed on to the liver,” he said.

Pretty big caveat but the sensationalist headline is all people will see.

The article doesn't read as very concerning. Too much of anything usually means bad. Under the right conditions anything can be bad. Figuring out what can be bad and when it can be bad can often take decades. Don't stress too much on trying to optomize out anything that can do you harm in a diet. You'd have nothing left to eat and even the greatest collective of biologist getting together to make the greatest nutritional shake meal replacement would probably miss something that causes issues decades down the line or people drink too much and overdose

Phew! Thank God I'm not a zebra fish, otherwise I'd need to seriously reconsider my diet high on sorbitol.

... In fish.

Tbh I am betting that it's gonna come out that they've known about the health risks all along, but they tried to ignore/cover it up for profit reasons.

Give up sugar. Try it, and tell me it isn't addictive.

Give up all sweeteners, because keeping them just makes you crave more, making it much harder.

I gave up sugar, and most fruits except berries. It made staying at my ideal weight MUCH easier. I really don't need to think about it, I weigh myself every few weeks, and I'm always at my ideal weight. Exercise is the other part of the equation, I think we need to do both.

Sorbitol

What I don’t get is why it took them decades to figure this out.

Well that's how it works with just about everything in high-tech capitalism. Enterprise & profits first, downstream and knock-on effects examined later. Just look at plastics, nicotine, pesticides, etc etc.

I also tend to think that sorbitol and other replacements aren't necessarily terrible in themselves, but look at the way they're used-- a typical diet drink / food item doesn't attempt to lower overall sweetness levels, it attempts to replace almost 100% of the sweetness with the artificial product, killing much of the point of doing so.

The good news is that consumers can be trained and untrained over time to crave excess sugars, salt, fat, fried food, etc. So you can reprogram your tastes over time, and get used to vastly lower quantities of unhealthy substances. For example, I used to drink and get normalised upon store-bought iced teas, which contain drastic amounts of sucrose / corn syrup. I just make it myself now, using a single packet of sucralose and a single sugar cube (15 kcals) in about 28fl oz brewed tea (Gatorade bottle). It took time, but it tastes perfectly sweet now, to me.

Pretty click-baity. They found out sorbitol was one step from fructose, which the researchers are actually studying

The headline (and the article for that matter) are very sensationalist and I don't think they've presented this in a balanced way. They are discussing how sorbitol behaves in zebrafish with limited data presented on human biochemistry, and they discuss it in a vacuum without quantifying the amount of sorbitol it takes to cause a problem. Yes, any substance in excess can be harmful, but the amount of sorbitol in food compared to the amount of high fructose corn syrup makes it the substantially lesser evil. The artificial sweeteners are vastly more potent than actual sugar, so you don't need very much of it to get the same amount of sweetness. High fructose corn syrup is used in massive amounts in food and is much worse for you on the scale that either substance would be consumed.

Well, sorbitol makes you shit like the devil's own firehose, so if anyone thought it was totally fine they were probably not paying attention.

A decades long double blind controlled study is FAR beyond the GRAS standard that requiring it would stifle not only commerce but also science in general.

That's why sometimes we don't see bad effects in food until decades later.

Hm, Western populations under Capitalism - especially Americans - is nothing but forced guinea-pigs. Our health are for sale, and we get cheated at every step of the way. Capitalism absolutely sucks, is nothing but manufactured consent/100% corruption, and it's incredible that people still get so easily propagandized to believe in the plutocrats pet ideology/religion.

But Stevia is still save?