Well, that sucks. The popular sugar substitute erythritol has been shown to increase risk of heart attack and stroke. This is the main ingredient in Stevia and some other sugar substitutes. Since many people use Stevia or monkfruit because they need to cut down on sugar for health reasons, this leaves many with the realization that they may have been actually making their health worse!
newsroom.clevelandclinic.org
New Cleveland Clinic research shows that consuming foods with erythritol, a popular artificial sweetener, increases risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. The findings, from a new intervention study in healthy volunteers, show erythritol made platelets (a type of blood cell) more active, which can raise the risk of blood clots. Sugar (glucose) did not have this effect.
Published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, the research adds to increasing evidence that erythritol may not be as safe as currently classified by food regulatory agencies and should be reevaluated as an ingredient. The study was conducted by a team of Cleveland Clinic researchers as part of a series of investigations on the physiological effects of common sugar substitutes.
“Many professional societies and clinicians routinely recommend that people at high cardiovascular risk – those with obesity, diabetes or metabolic syndrome – consume foods that contain sugar substitutes rather than sugar,” said senior and corresponding author Stanley Hazen, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences in Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and co-section head of Preventive Cardiology. “These findings underscore the importance of further long-term clinical studies to assess the cardiovascular safety of erythritol and other sugar substitutes.”
Erythritol and other artificial sweeteners are common replacements for table sugar in low-calorie, low-carbohydrate and “keto” products. Erythritol is about 70% as sweet as sugar and is produced through fermenting corn. After ingestion, erythritol is poorly metabolized by the body. Instead, it goes into the bloodstream and leaves the body mainly through urine. The human body creates low amounts of erythritol naturally, so any additional consumption can accumulate.
Erythritol is classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority as a GRAS (“generally recognized as safe”) ingredient, allowing its use without restriction in food products. This is primarily because it is a sugar alcohol found naturally in fruits and vegetables and a byproduct of glucose metabolism in human tissue, although in small quantities.
However, recent studies by Dr. Hazen’s group, have found evidence that erythritol in typically consumed amounts may increase cardiovascular risk.
The current research builds on the team’s previous study, published last year in Nature Medicine, which revealed that cardiac patients with high erythritol levels were twice as likely to experience a major cardiac event in the following three years compared to those with low levels. The study also discovered that adding erythritol to patients’ blood or platelets increased clot formation. These findings were confirmed by pre-clinical studies.
“This research raises some concerns that a standard serving of an erythritol-sweetened food or beverage may acutely stimulate a direct clot-forming effect,” said study co-author W. H. Wilson Tang, M.D., research director for Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Medicine at Cleveland Clinic.
Cleveland Clinic Study: Substitute Erythritol Raises Cardiovascular Risk
Research a adds to increasing evidence of erythritol’s effects. The artificial sweetener is a common ingredient in baked goods, beverages, gum and candy.
newsroom.clevelandclinic.org
New Cleveland Clinic research shows that consuming foods with erythritol, a popular artificial sweetener, increases risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. The findings, from a new intervention study in healthy volunteers, show erythritol made platelets (a type of blood cell) more active, which can raise the risk of blood clots. Sugar (glucose) did not have this effect.
Published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, the research adds to increasing evidence that erythritol may not be as safe as currently classified by food regulatory agencies and should be reevaluated as an ingredient. The study was conducted by a team of Cleveland Clinic researchers as part of a series of investigations on the physiological effects of common sugar substitutes.
“Many professional societies and clinicians routinely recommend that people at high cardiovascular risk – those with obesity, diabetes or metabolic syndrome – consume foods that contain sugar substitutes rather than sugar,” said senior and corresponding author Stanley Hazen, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences in Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and co-section head of Preventive Cardiology. “These findings underscore the importance of further long-term clinical studies to assess the cardiovascular safety of erythritol and other sugar substitutes.”
Erythritol and other artificial sweeteners are common replacements for table sugar in low-calorie, low-carbohydrate and “keto” products. Erythritol is about 70% as sweet as sugar and is produced through fermenting corn. After ingestion, erythritol is poorly metabolized by the body. Instead, it goes into the bloodstream and leaves the body mainly through urine. The human body creates low amounts of erythritol naturally, so any additional consumption can accumulate.
Erythritol is classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority as a GRAS (“generally recognized as safe”) ingredient, allowing its use without restriction in food products. This is primarily because it is a sugar alcohol found naturally in fruits and vegetables and a byproduct of glucose metabolism in human tissue, although in small quantities.
However, recent studies by Dr. Hazen’s group, have found evidence that erythritol in typically consumed amounts may increase cardiovascular risk.
The current research builds on the team’s previous study, published last year in Nature Medicine, which revealed that cardiac patients with high erythritol levels were twice as likely to experience a major cardiac event in the following three years compared to those with low levels. The study also discovered that adding erythritol to patients’ blood or platelets increased clot formation. These findings were confirmed by pre-clinical studies.
“This research raises some concerns that a standard serving of an erythritol-sweetened food or beverage may acutely stimulate a direct clot-forming effect,” said study co-author W. H. Wilson Tang, M.D., research director for Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Medicine at Cleveland Clinic.
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