No one has ever claimed that artificial sweeteners are a health food. The argument usually runs: “Well, they aren’t as bad as sugar.”

Or are they? We aren’t going to “take sides” here generally, but rather just make 8 observations – 4 pro and 4 con – regarding the study just released that recommends not consuming Splenda, the brand name of sucralose. Let’s start with the arguments against Splenda.

1. The study claims some very specific harms and risks

To quote a cogent summary of the study in MedicalNewsToday:

The results showed signs of genotoxicity. The researchers also found that sucralose caused leaky gut or damage to the gut lining. In addition, they observed the genetic activity of the gut cells and discovered that sucralose caused an increase in gene activity linked to oxidative stress, inflammation, and carcinogenicity.

The linkage to leaky gut syndrome – in which digestive matter well on its way to the usual exit venue leaks into your perineum – was the one we found to be, to use a technical clinical term, the grossest.

2. The quantities involved were realistic

This isn’t one of those studies where they gave rats 10,000 times what a human would consume and found an elevated risk of whatever, like toenail fungus or uromysitisis.

Quite the opposite. The amount of the chemical in question, sucralose-6-acetate, that can cause harm could easily be produced by the gut of a regular consumer of sucralose. Specifically, as one summary says:

The European Food Safety Authority has a threshold of toxicological concern for all genotoxic substances of 0.15 micrograms per person per day…The trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in a single, daily sucralose-sweetened drink exceed that threshold. And that’s not even accounting for the amount of sucralose-6-acetate produced as metabolites after people consume sucralose.

The other six can be found here.

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