Is your intestine not working properly? It could be the sweetener –

At the time to ask for a coffee, you exchange the common sugar for the sweetener. With sweets, it’s the same thing – exchange the common ones for those that are light, without sugar or developed with sweeteners. But let’s be honest: is the sweetener really the best choice to replace sugar? And, above all, what effects does it have on our body in the long run?

We talked with the doctor Julian Burckhardtnutrologist member of the Associação Brasileira de Nutrologia, to know exactly how the sweetener interacts with our organism and how, mainly, it interferes with the gut health.

To begin with, it’s important to understand what we’re talking about when we talk about sweeteners. According to the doctor, artificial sweeteners, also known as sweeteners, are chemical substances capable of conferring or intensifying the sweet taste of foods, without the use of common sugar (also called sucrose).

In general terms, many believe that changing common refined sugar for sweetener is a good choice because, in theory, it is “less worse” for health. However, the doctor explains that its consumption in excess, mainly in industrialized foods, which combine this substance with dyes and other chemical elements, makes its consumption even worse for health than that of traditional sugar.

“I don’t see any benefits,” he explains. “Because they are industrialized substances, I usually say that there are less worse ones. On this scale, we put the natural ones, such as xylitol, stevia and thaumatin, for example. Of those that scientific studies have definitively shown to be carcinogenic, we highlight cyclamate, sucralose, saccharin and aspartame.”

How sweetener consumption affects gut health

You can already tell that you don’t play around when talking about sweetener consumption, but it is important to understand the effect that this substance has on a specific point in the human body, the intestine. According to the nutrologist, a study published last week explains that the most common versions of sweeteners available on the market can alter the performance of bacteria present in the human intestine, impairing the digestion process. The research in question was a collaboration between the universities of Ben-Gurion, in Israel, and Nanyang Technological, from Singapore, and the conclusion is clear: do not use artificial sweeteners in your diet.

“Research with mice suggested that sweeteners alter the way the body processes fat and energy, while another study applied to humans led to increased rates of diabetes, obesity and blood pressure,” he explains. “In the United States, consumption of the most common types of sweeteners has been falling. Consumers have preferred stevia, a natural sweetener extracted from a plant found on the border of Brazil and Paraguay, but whose use has not yet been regulated by the US government because researchers are also cautious about its effects on the body.”

The good news is that, also according to the doctor, the effects caused in the intestine by the consumption of sweeteners are reversible, but it depends on two factors: the first is the decrease in consumption and the second is always opting for the natural versions, which can be administered in a more conscious way in the daily diet, excluding industrialized foods.