Consuming some low-calorie sweeteners has been safe for decades. Still, a new American study published on Monday (27) in the international academic journal Nature Medicine suggests that a sugar substitute called “erythritol” may increase the risk of blood clot formation, stroke, heart attack, death, etc. Patients with heart disease or diabetes were urged to cut back on food intake temporarily.
According to a report in Hong Kong’s “Wen Wei Po,” a comprehensive foreign news outlet, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, the Lerner Research Institute, and academics from Germany set out to determine whether or not certain chemicals or compounds in blood samples could be used to predict the occurrence of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and death within the following three years.
The research team examined blood samples from 1157 high-risk individuals for cardiovascular disease between 2004 and 2011. They discovered that those with elevated “erythritol” levels were more likely to experience cardiovascular disease, stroke, or death within the following three years.
The study’s findings were verified by analyzing 830 blood samples collected in the US and EU. Over half of the participants were men between 60 and 70. All had high blood pressure or coronary artery thrombosis, and one in five had diabetes.
Patients with diabetes or cardiovascular disease who had elevated blood levels of “erythropoietin” were found to be at twice the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.
Animal studies have shown that “erythritol” can cause blood clots, so it’s no surprise that scientists have linked it to this effect. According to the study’s director, Hutson of the Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Prevention Center, “erythritol” in the blood at a concentration of 10% can stimulate 90-100% of blood clots.
Blood clots are more likely to form in humans after ingesting “erythritol,” as shown by experimental results. He emphasized that more research was needed to back up the claims but that people should limit their consumption of the substance for safety reasons.
Recommended for diabetics
After the study, Hutson had eight healthy volunteers consume a drink containing 30 grams of “erythritol,” He monitored their blood levels of “erythritol” for three days. The results demonstrated that 30 grams of “erythritol” were sufficient to increase “erythritol” in the blood by a factor of 1000.
Despite being a sugar alcohol, “erythritol” is expected in the diet because of its low-calorie count and moderate sweetness (70 percent of that of sucrose).
According to Hutson, “erythritol” is commonly recommended to people with diabetes because it tastes very similar to sucrose and can be used in baking.
The “Calorie Control Committee” is skeptical of the trial’s findings because, according to the committee’s executive director Rankin, they run counter to decades of research, the study is an outlier, and the results cannot be extrapolated from.
Erythritol has been deemed safe for consumption by the European Food Safety Authority and the FDA. However, as Dow Jones, a chemistry professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, pointed out, the study only demonstrated a link between “erythritol” and blood clot formation; it did not prove that erythritol is the direct cause of blood clots.
[Different kinds of sugar replacement]
◆Erythritol
Calorie-wise, it’s close to 0.4 per gram, and the FDA, EU, and Japan all permit it to be labeled as “zero” in that department. People who have a sweet tooth but worry about their weight or blood sugar levels can use it instead of sugar because it has almost no calories.
◆Sorbitol
It’s used to make sugar-free gum and candies because of its refreshing taste. Still, it’s also known by its chemical name, sorbitol. It’s a nutritive sweetener that keeps giving off heat long after ingestion, with about 2.6 kcal per gram and back half the sweetness of sucrose per gram.
◆Xylitol
They are sugar alcohol derived from birch, corn cob, and sugar cane bagasse. It is commonly used in chewing gum because it refreshes the mouth and does not promote tooth decay. One gram of xylitol has about 2.4 kcal. It is about 90% as sweet as sucrose but still produces calories after ingestion.
◆Stevia
It’s 200–300 times sweeter than cane sugar and has hardly any calories because it’s made from herbs in the Asteraceae family.
◆Mannitol
Particularly useful as a diuretic, mannitol has many applications. Mannitol has about 40% fewer calories and about 50% less sweetness than sugar. Another benefit of mannitol is that it aids in keeping blood sugar levels steady by delaying its absorption into the blood.
◆Aspartame
Aspartame has about the same calories per gram as regular sugar. Still, it’s 200-300 times sweeter, so only a tiny amount is needed to replicate sugar’s sweetness.
