Studies have shown that artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes that sweeten foods without additional calories can affect gut and heart health.
According to a report published by the Washington Post, although many people reduce their intake of sugar for health reasons, food manufacturers have found other ways to replace it with packaged sweeteners such as sucralose, stevia, allulose, and Erythritol and others.
Many sugar substitutes are known as high-intensity sweeteners because they are often hundreds of Food manufacturers say that sugar substitutes help people control their weight and reduce their intake of added sugars, but studies indicate that these substitutes can also have harmful effects on the intestines and the metabolic system, and even promote food cravings and insulin resistance, which is What is a precursor to type 2 diabetes.
A study conducted by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel found that sugar substitutes caused changes in the function of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in the intestines.
Microbes in the gut play many important roles: one is that they convert the food you eat into enzymes, hormones and vitamins.
Other studies suggest that people who consume a lot of low-calorie sweeteners have higher rates of obesity and overweight.
A study published in the British Medical Journal found that consuming large amounts of manufactured sweeteners increases the risk of cardiovascular problems such as strokes and coronary heart disease.
Another study published in the journal Nature Medicine linked the sugar substitute erythritol to higher rates of heart attacks and strokes.