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What sweetener strategies work for you—do you like pink, blue, yellow, or none?
"There's really no evidence that sweeteners should not be used," said Nadine Uplinger, member of the board of the American Association of Diabetes Educators and director of the Gutman Diabetes Institute at the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia. "It's really an individual preference."
Aspartame and saccharin are decades old, and are considered by the FDA to be safe for human use.
However, there's still debate over whether such sweeteners in diet soda and other products can stimulate the appetite, says William Bornstein, MD, an endocrinologist at the the Emory Clinic in Atlanta. "That's the lingering question," he says.
The FDA recommends that consumers use the sweeteners in moderation.
Other low-calorie sweeteners you should use in moderation are those containing "sugar alcohols." These contain calories and carbohydrates, and can cause diarrhea if you eat large amounts. They are often found in chewing gum, candy or in baked products.
They include:
• Sorbitol
• Mannitol
• Xylitol
• Isomalt
• Hydrogenated starch hydrolysates
"Too much of those particular diet sweeteners will upset the stomach," says Dr. Bornstein. "Frequently we run into people with diabetes or not who are chewing a lot of sugarless chewing gum and having a lot of loose stools or gas, and it turns out that's the cause."
A German study published in BMJ (British Medical Journal) in 2008 linked chronic diarrhea and weight loss in two patients to excessive use of sorbitol-containing chewing gum (15 sticks a day or more).
