You must be aware that sugar is not great for health, especially for those with heart disease as well as diabetes and other issues. Due to that, artificial sweeteners were introduced and have been used in food products for a long time now. It was touted as the next big thing in the health industry, and claims were made that this is a healthier substitute to sugar and does not increase sugar levels as much as traditional sugar. However, many have claimed that artificial sweeteners are not great for health either.
As much as people were talking about it, there were no clear studies until now to determine what exactly was the problem with artificial sweeteners. Now, we have a study which states that the artificial sweeteners could contribute to heart disease as well as stroke in patients. One particular artificial sweetener is contributing to a lot of heart diseases and strokes for at-risk patients and this is touted as the zero-calorie sweetener and is very popular. This artificial sweetener is named as erythritol and it is found in grapes and mushrooms naturally, but it is developed artificially as well and included in food.
One more revelation is that this zero-calorie sweetener is used to sweeten low-calorie, low-carb and “keto” products which is also the reason why we are told to stay away from keto products that have high amounts of these sweeteners. Researchers from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio published their research and evaluated more than 4000 Americans undergoing cardiac evaluation and found that those who had high level of blood concentration with artificial sweeteners were more at risk of heart disease and stroke compared to those who did not have a higher blood concentration.
The study’s co-author said, “People are trying to do something healthy for themselves but inadvertently may be doing harm,”. The activity of platelets was seen to be higher in erythritol, the artificial sweetener that is the main culprit here. Platelet is a type of blood cell that increases the risk of developing clots which is also the main reason for heart disease and stroke. It was also found that those who drank an erythritol-sweetened drink had their blood sugar levels spiked for at least 48 hours.
