Reducing sugar intake can be a significant challenge for individuals aiming to lose weight, especially due to the change in taste experienced when avoiding sugary comfort foods. Many people turn to artificial sweeteners in an attempt to satisfy their taste buds. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently stated that artificial sweeteners do not provide long-term benefits for reducing body fat in adults or children.
In accordance with their new guideline, the WHO highlights that artificial sweeteners not only lack benefits but also increase the risk of type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even death. Francesco Branca, Director for Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO, emphasizes that people should explore other approaches to reduce their intake of free sugars.
According to Branca, replacing free sugars with non-sugar sweeteners (NSS) does not contribute to long-term weight control. Instead, individuals should consider alternatives such as consuming foods with naturally occurring sugars, like fruits, or opting for unsweetened food and beverages. Branca emphasizes that NSS are not essential dietary factors and lack nutritional value, recommending an overall reduction in dietary sweetness from an early age to improve health.
Common examples of NSS include aspartame, advantame, sucralose, saccharin, neotame, acesulfame K, cyclamates, stevia, and stevia derivatives. It’s important to note that the WHO’s recommendation does not extend to personal care and hygiene products containing non-sugar sweeteners, such as skin cream, toothpaste, medications, low-calorie sugars, and sugar alcohols (polyols), as these do not pose the risks identified by the WHO.
The WHO acknowledges that the observed link between NSS and disease outcomes may be influenced by baseline characteristics of study participants and complex patterns of NSS use. Therefore, the recommendation is assessed as conditional, requiring in-depth discussions in specific country contexts regarding consumption patterns among different age groups.
Nutrition researcher Ian Johnson, emeritus fellow at Quadram Institute Bioscience, emphasizes that this new guideline is based on a comprehensive assessment of the latest scientific literature. He adds that it underscores the ineffectiveness of artificial sweeteners as a weight loss strategy by reducing dietary energy intake.
In light of this guideline, it’s time to revisit our approach to sugar reduction and consider eliminating sugar altogether, moving back to basic dietary principles.
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