Health Claims

Taking stevioside every day might help people who are overweight or have type 2 diabetes keep their blood sugar and bad cholesterol lower after meals.

Causal

Eating a lot of erythritol (like 30 grams) causes a huge spike in your blood levels of it that lasts for more than two days, and this might make your blood more likely to clot, which could raise your risk of heart problems over the next few years.

Causal

People who eat or drink things with aspartame (like diet soda) might be more likely to get cancer or stroke, based on a big study of over 100,000 French adults followed for about 8 years.

Correlational

People who consume more of the artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium seem to have a higher chance of developing heart disease and blocked neck arteries, and their blood tends to show higher levels of this sweetener if they already have serious artery problems.

Correlational

Eating a lot of sucralose (an artificial sweetener) over time might make your body less responsive to insulin and change the good bacteria in your gut, which could make it harder for your body to manage blood sugar.

Correlational

Scientists think that a special connection between brain blood vessels and nerve cells might be how the artificial sweetener aspartame harms the brain — by causing too much excitement in nerves, creating harmful chemicals, and messing with brain signals.

Mechanistic

The safe amount of aspartame set for everyone might be too high for some people—like kids or those with certain health conditions—because their bodies might react differently to it.

Mechanistic

When your body breaks down aspartame (an artificial sweetener), it makes three substances that, in lab studies, might mess with brain cell signaling and cause stress — potentially harming the tiny blood vessels and nerves in the brain.

Mechanistic

We don’t know for sure if aspartame harms the brain over time because most studies have been too short and too small to catch slow-building problems, especially in people who might be more sensitive to it.

Descriptive

Eating or drinking things with aspartame, even in amounts considered safe, might be linked to more brain inflammation and faster memory or thinking problems in kids, teens, or people who are overweight or have metabolic issues.

Correlational

Stevia, a natural sweetener, may help lower blood sugar after meals and improve cholesterol levels in people with diabetes or who are overweight.

Correlational

Eating or drinking products with erythritol can cause a huge spike in its levels in your blood that lasts for days—and this might make your blood more likely to clot, raising your risk of heart attack or stroke.

Correlational

People who drink a lot of diet soda with aspartame may have a slightly higher chance of getting cancer, but it’s unclear if the sweetener itself is to blame or if it’s because these people tend to be heavier or eat worse.

Correlational

People who consume more acesulfame potassium (a diet soda sweetener) are more likely to have clogged arteries and heart disease, according to population studies.

Correlational

Drinking diet sodas with sucralose might make your body less responsive to insulin and change your gut bacteria in a way that makes blood sugar harder to control.

Correlational

Sugar alcohols like erythritol have fewer calories than sugar and don’t cause as much stomach upset as other sugar substitutes — but eating too much can still give you gas or diarrhea.

Descriptive

Artificial and natural sweeteners don’t taste exactly like sugar because they bind differently to your tongue’s taste buds — sometimes leaving a bitter or metallic aftertaste.

Mechanistic

Sweeteners from stevia and monk fruit don’t raise your blood sugar or give you calories because your body doesn’t break them down — they just pass through you.

Mechanistic

The artificial sweeteners you find in diet sodas and sugar-free snacks, if approved by health agencies, are considered safe when you eat them in normal amounts — and there’s no solid proof they cause cancer, make you gain weight, or hurt your gut bacteria.

Descriptive

If you swap out sugary drinks like soda for diet drinks with artificial sweeteners, studies suggest you might be less likely to get type 2 diabetes, heart disease, or die from heart problems or any cause — but only if the study makes sure people weren’t already sick when they switched drinks.

Correlational

If you swap sugary drinks like soda for diet drinks with artificial sweeteners, you might lose weight and reduce fat in your body and liver — especially if you’re overweight or obese.

Causal

If you're overweight or obese and drink diet soda with sucralose for 12 weeks, your body doesn't absorb it — it just passes through, and doctors couldn't find any trace of it in the blood.

Descriptive

If you're overweight and swap sugary drinks for diet drinks with sucralose for 12 weeks, your body fat, weight, and inflammation markers probably won't change.

Causal

If you're overweight and swap sugary drinks for diet drinks with sucralose for 12 weeks, your waist size and blood sugar levels may go down, and your good cholesterol may go up.

Causal