Many people are cutting back on their sugar intake for health reasons. But the food industry has found another way to give consumers their sweet fix.
It is quietly replacing the sugar in many packaged foods with sucralose, stevia, allulose, erythritol and a wide variety of other artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes.
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The number of food products containing low- or no-calorie sugar substitutes has surged in the past five years, according to an analysis by Mintel, the market research firm.
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Scientists used to think that non-nutritive sweeteners were largely inert, activating sweet receptors on our tongues and passing through our bodies without causing metabolic changes.
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But one rigorous study led by Suez at the Weizmann Institute of Science with researcher Eran Elinav looked at what happened when people were given aspartame, saccharin, stevia, or sucralose in amounts well below the FDA’s daily allowances. The study found that these sweeteners caused changes in both the function and composition of the participants’ gut microbiomes, the communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in the intestines.
