I am not diabetic. Not yet. My fasting blood sugar level is still below 100mg/dL. However, some of my colleagues are. Whenever we drink coffee, they ask for artificial sweeteners. They also go for soda with zero sugar which has artificial sweeteners too.
I believe that anything unnatural has a negative side effect. For sugar substitutes, scientists have conducted lots of research on their possible health effects. However, few studies have been made on their impact on the environment. Apparently, artificial sweeteners affect the natural world in ways the inventors of these products did not foresee.
Some artificial sweeteners affect the environment in the same way some medicines do. After being ingested, ingredients not used by the body are excreted and wastewater facilities are not capable of treating these residues. As a result, these residues make their way into bodies of water, the soil and groundwater.
Artificial sugars, unlike natural sugars, pass through the body with little change in their composition. An example is sucralose. This substance can’t be break down also by microorganisms, because it’s a really tough molecule that doesn’t degrade easily. This is according to a study done by the University of Florida which demonstrated how sucralose affects the behavior of cyanobacteria, an aquatic photosynthetic bacteria, and diatoms, microscopic algae that account for more than 30% of the primary food production in the marine food chain.
The study reveals that sucralose’s ability to both increase and decrease microbial community populations could potentially threaten a naturally balanced ecosystem. The researchers said that more research is needed to fully understand sucralose and its impact on aquatic environments.
As to its health effects, some studies say that sucralose may stimulate your appetite, making you eat more and thus result in obesity. Some studies have also shown that sucralose can change the gut microbiome by lowering the number of good bacteria by half.
There are natural sugar substitutes. One of them is stevia, which is made from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana plant of South America. The leaves contain chemicals called steviol glycosides that have a highly concentrated sweet flavor.
Stevia is about 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar and is a non-nutritive sweetener, which means it has no carbohydrates, calories, or artificial ingredients. In South America and Asia, people have been using stevia leaves to sweeten drinks like tea for many years.
Another alternative, though rare, is Tagatose. It is a natural sweetener present in only small amounts in fruits, cacao, and dairy products. It is similar in texture and appearance to table sugar and is 92% as sweet, but with only 38% of the calories.
With natural substitutes, we can avoid both diabetes and pollution.