© Shutterstock
The artificial sweetener erythritol, often used as a sugar substitute, may increase the risk of certain cardiovascular diseases. This is according to a new study. For high-risk patients, large amounts of the substance can even double their risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
Janne EijkmansBron: CNN, Nature Medicine
The study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, followed 4,000 residents of Europe and the United States for three years. For example, it turned out that the people who consumed the sweetener erythritol the most were more likely to experience heart problems, such as a heart attack, stroke or even death. “Our findings show that erythritol is associated with both the risk of major cardiovascular events and that of thrombosis,” the researchers write.
Products with sweeteners such as erythritol are popular with people who want to lose weight. “There are many different sweeteners, but erythritol has recently become very popular because its crystal structure makes it very similar to sugar,” says Michael Sels, chief dietitian at the Antwerp University Hospital. “The substance has been approved by the European Food Agency and is increasingly being used in diet versions of all kinds of dairy products, chocolate, candy, cakes, ice cream and so on to give them a sweet taste. It has a sweetening power of 70% compared to sugar, so you have to add more to get the same taste, but the number of calories is much lower, at 0.2 kcal per gram.” You can also buy it in its pure form in many shops.
Sweeteners are also often recommended for patients with diabetes and obesity, for example. But it is precisely for them that erythritol can pose potential dangers, because they already run a higher risk of cardiovascular disease anyway. At-risk patients who consumed the highest levels of erythritol had a twice as likely risk of heart attacks and strokes compared to the lowest 25 percent.
Although erythritol is an authorized sweetener, “not much is known yet about its long-term effects on the risk of cardiometabolic diseases.” A certain caution therefore seems important, as well as further research in the wider population and for more sweeteners. “The current studies suggest that more research is needed on the effect of erythritol in particular and of artificial sweeteners in general,” the researchers conclude.