Nutrition 101 Video Series: The Lowdown on Low-Calorie Sweeteners
This is the fourth installment of our video series in partnership with Osmosis, a group that focuses on health science education, highlighting the basics of several nutrition topics. The Nutrition 101 series also includes videos on dietary fats, carbohydrates, sugars and hydration. Most people love sweet foods. Originally, sweetness was nature’s way of identifying energy-dense foods that were safe to eat. This was particularly important throughout the long history of our species when food was scarce. But times have changed and nowadays, sweetness is mostly associated with the sugars added to foods and drinks. Unfortunately, many people consume too many calories from these sorts of added sugars. Over time, consuming more calories than the body needs can contribute to the onset of chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, or cardiovascular disease. Low-calorie sweeteners can satisfy our taste buds while reducing the calories we eat from sugar. The good news is that randomized controlled trials have shown that replacing full-calorie foods and beverages with low-calorie sweetened versions can lead to modest weight loss, as long as the individual doesn’t overindulge on additional calories from other sources say, by ordering dessert because they had a diet soda with dinner. Low-calorie sweeteners don’t raise blood glucose or insulin levels, so they can help people with diabetes control their blood sugar and reduce the amount of total sugars they consume each day. Some low- and no-calorie sweeteners, like stevia and monk fruit extracts, come from plants. Others, like aspartame, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium are man-made. It’s important to note that all of them are sweeter than sugar, which means that only tiny amounts are needed to equal the sweetness of sugar. As a result, low-calorie sweeteners are often blended with carbohydrates like dextrose and maltodextrin or the sugar alcohol erythritol when […]
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