Artificial Sweeteners – A Boon or Scourge
A Look at the Pros and Cons of Sucralose as a Healthy Alternative
Jun 12, 2009
Artificial (sugar-free) sweeteners are the in-thing. Manufacturers appeal to consumers telling them that they are offering a low/zero calorie, sugar-free, sweeter-than-sucrose alternative, which is safe. These are also called non-nutritive sweeteners, whose use began with the need for cost reduction and continued on with the need for calorie reduction These sweeteners allowed us to have the cake and eat it too! The history of such sweeteners goes a long way back to saccharin which has been around for a hundred years.
Sucralose – Sugar in disguise?
According to Wikipedia, sucralose was discovered in 1976 and is derived from sugar through a patented, multi-step process that selectively substitutes three chlorine atoms for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule. Sucralose is approximately 600 times as sweet as table sugar (sucrose), twice as sweet as saccharin and 3.3 times as sweet as aspartame. According to the International Food Information Council (ific.org), sucralose has undergone more than 100 scientific studies over a 20-year period which determined that sucralose did not pose carcinogenic, reproductive, or neurological risk to human beings and hence is safe for consumption.
Sold under the trade names Splenda® and SucraPlus®, sucralose was given approval for use as a general-purpose sweetener. It is currently found in over 4,500 products, including foods that are cooked or baked. The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for sucralose was set at 5 mg/kg of body weight/day. It is a no-calorie sweetener; it does not promote dental caries and is safe for consumption by diabetics. Sucralose is not broken down for energy in the body so it has no calories. The sucralose molecule passes through the body unchanged, is not metabolized, and is eliminated after consumption
Not So Sweet
A lot of controversy surrounding sucralose stems from the fact that it is a chlorocarbon, similar to insecticides like DDT and Lindane®. According to the book Sweet Deception, sucralose is made when sugar is treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriethlyammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide, making it unlike anything found in nature.
Also the presence of chlorine in the sucralose molecule is thought to be dangerous since it is a known carcinogen. According to the website www.holisticmed.com, research on sucralose has led to the discovery of adverse effects like shrunken thymus glands, enlarged kidneys, reduced growth rate, decreased red blood cell count and aborted pregnancy. This site also posts testimonials of users of Splenda who have experienced adverse effects. Advocates of sucralose say that there is a large margin of safety (5 to 1500 mg/kg of body weight/day) in the use of sucralose and even an overdose would be safe.
Both saccharin and aspartame were initially approved by the FDA even though they were plagued by negative data prior to the approval process; both were tested by the manufacturers themselves or by independent researchers hired by the manufacturers. Many chemists believe that manufacturers have tried to hide the negative aspects of the trials of sucralose; anything that will put their product in bad light. Once again, an artificial sweetener has found itself in the midst of a rowing controversy and the consumers are well advised to use this health wonder at their own risk.
