(ORDO NEWS) — Sweeteners are often used by people with diabetes or who want to reduce the amount of calories in their food.
However, American researchers have found that at least one of the sugar substitutes is far from being as harmless as we think.
rtificial sweeteners are often used in dietary foods and beverages. They also often act as an alternative to sugar for patients with diabetes and other conditions in which blood sugar levels need to be monitored.
Usually, sweeteners are marketed as “completely natural and safe.” However, little research has been done on their long-term effects on human health.
One of the sweeteners is erythritol, which was originally isolated from algae. It is almost not absorbed in our body, so it is used to make confectionery products that do not cause caries and are safe for diabetics.
In fact, erythritol was not at all so harmless to the body.
Among 1,157 people who donated blood for a three-year period to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes were most often recorded in those who regularly ate sweeteners, the most common of which was just erythritol.
The relationship between the presence of erythritol in blood samples and the risk of cardiovascular disease was observed in both American (2149 people) and European patients (833 people) of various ethnic and social groups.
An additional study showed that adding erythritol to whole human blood or injecting it into the blood of animals leads to the formation of clots that can potentially clog blood vessels.
Then the authors of the work conducted an experiment involving eight healthy volunteers who were offered to drink 30 grams of an erythritol-sweetened drink (with a daily intake of about 60-70 grams).
As a result, people had elevated levels of erythritol in their blood for two to three days, which increased the risk of blood clots.
As a result, the constant use of erythritol in food can be harmful to the state of the cardiovascular system.
However, the authors emphasize that they collected results on people already at risk for cardiovascular disease for a variety of reasons.
To clarify the effect of erythritol on the human body, additional studies will be required involving a large sample of healthy patients, who will be monitored for many years.
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