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THE POTENTIAL TOXICITY OF ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
Since their discovery, the safety of artificial sweeteners has been controversial. Artificial sweeteners provide the sweetness of sugar without the calories. These choices may be beneficial for those who cannot tolerate sugar in their diets. Recently these substances have received increased attention due to their effects in glucose regulation.Consumers and food manufacturers have long been interested in dietary sweeteners to replace sucrose in foods, enhancing flavor while reducing calories. Artificial sweeteners have been classified as nutritive and non-nutritive depending on whether they are a source of calories the nutritive sweeteners include the monosaccharide polyols (sorbitol, mannitol and xylitol) and the disaccharide plyols(maltitol and lactitol) the non-nutritive sweeteners, better known as artificial sweeteners, include substances from several different chemical classes that interact with taste receptors and typically exceed the sweetness of sucrose by factor of 30 to 13,000 times. To date the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has approved five sugar substitutes for use in a variety of food with another pending. In theUnited States the three most common primary compounds used as sugar substitutes are saccharin, aspartame and sucralose. In many other countries cyclamate and the herbal sweetener stevia are used extensively.
Saccharin was the first artificial sweetener discover and has no calories and is 300 times sweeter than sugar. The acceptable daily intake is currently 5mg/kg of body weight per day. The FDAconsiders this compound safe because it is not absorbed or metabolized by the body; it is excreted via the kidneys. Exposure studies of saccharin provide both positive and negative results, including the potential to induce cancer in rats, dogs and humans. For these studies animals were exposed to the compound in this case the saccharin, at all ages of development, these studies clearlydemonstrated that when rats were exposed to diets containing 5% or 7.5% saccharin from time of conception to death, an increased frequency of urinary blander cancers was found, predominantly in males.
Aspartame was first approved by the FDA in 1981 and it is 200 times sweeter than sucrose. The aceeptable daily intake is 50mg/kg/d. Upon ingestion aspartame is hydrolyzed in the intestinal lumen into itscomponents, aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. These components are then absorbed into the blood and each is metabolized. It has been hypothesized that neither aspartame nor its components accumulates in the body. By far aspartame has been the most controversial artificial sweetener because of its potential toxicity. New research from Soffritti et al provides evidence of the carcinogenicpotential of this compound. Their research using fetus of rats, has demonstrated a significant increase of malignant tumors in males, an increase in the incidence of lymphomas and leukemias in males and females, and an increase in the incidence of mammary cancer in females. These results reinforce and confirm previous research that also demonstrated the carcinogenicity potential of aspartame and theincreased carcinogenetic potential if exposure occurs during gestation. In 2007 Ferland, Brassard and Poirier investigated the effect of aspartame on plasma glucose and insulin levels during acute exercise in 14 men with type 2 diabetes. Contrary to all expectations, the aspartame breakfast induced a similar rise in glucose and insulin levels at baseline as the sucrose meal.
Acesulfame-K wasdiscovered in 1967 and it is 200 times sweeter than sugar, it is not metabolized in the body and it is excreted unchanged. A study made by Mukherjee and Chakrabarti in 1997 of the cytogenicity of this sweetener indicated that when the dosage administered to the mice was within the acceptable daily intake of 15 mg/kg/ of body weigth, the number of chromosomal aberrations was not significant compared...