Study Confirms Health-Friendly Sucralose Is Better Than Sugar
There’s sweet news for all of us craving holiday treats while trying to cut back on sugar. A new landmark study confirms what doctors and nutritionists have long advised: sugar-free sweeteners like sucralose, the zero-calorie sugar substitute in Splenda®, can positively help us manage, and improve, our health.
As a doctor with a strong family history of diabetes, I was glad to read this research result in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Metabolism. In a randomized clinical trial versus sugar, non-sugar sweeteners, including sucralose, were found to help patients lose weight and to achieve improvement in gut bacteria that can support healthy digestion.
The SWEET study, as it’s called, is one of the most comprehensive long-term investigations of sweeteners to date, and it reinforces and advances decades of similar findings. The study tracked adults and children who were overweight or obese, divided into two groups: in one group, sugar could be part of their diet; in the other group, only non-sugar sweeteners, including sucralose, were allowed.
Over course of the study, which lasted more than a year, both groups were followed for weight loss, and their gut bacteria were very carefully studied for the effects of sugar versus non-sugar sweeteners. The results were clear and encouraging: those who swapped sugar for non-sugar sweeteners, including sucralose, not only kept more weight off than those who stuck with sugar, but their gut microbiomes—the role of which is becoming ever better defined as important to overall health—also improved.
These findings help correct years of confusion about the impacts of sucralose in particular. For more than a decade, many consumers have been told that Splenda®, one of the most widely used low-calorie sweeteners in the world, might harm the gut microbiome. That assertion was based on a 2008 study done in rats—not humans--that claimed sucralose disrupted gut bacteria. The journal that published the study has since issued an official “expression of concern” over possible data manipulation and has advised readers to interpret the information “with due caution.”
The SWEET study has proven, using real science to debunk sensationalized and unsupported claims, that replacing sugar with non-sugar sweeteners, including sucralose, can actually be beneficial to our gut bacteria.
This is a big win in just about every way you can imagine. For those of us who are watching our weight and our calories every day, being able to enjoy sweet treats without sugar really enhances our quality of life. For doctors like me who care for patients with diabetes, being able to recommend sugar-free sweeteners like Splenda®’s sucralose gives us a powerful tool to help prevent serious complications. Ever since Splenda® first became available in the U.S. in 1998, it’s been my first choice for myself and my first recommendation for my patients, and it’s no surprise that worldwide, the popularity of foods and beverages sweetened with sucralose has soared in recent years.
And for our country, with 90 million Americans suffering from obesity and all the illnesses it causes—like diabetes, affecting 38 million of us—making it easier to cut sugar out of our diets is a huge win for both the quality and cost of our health care. With the new focus on making America healthy again, or MAHA, receiving broad support, sugar-free alternatives like sucralose can be embraced with confidence.
Wisely, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins are urging us to reduce sugar consumption; doctors and public health officials across the political spectrum echo this recommendation. Non-sugar sweeteners like sucralose let us do that without giving up the flavors that make life more enjoyable—and that can transform a healthy goal into a life-enhancing, lifetime habit.
With the SWEET study, we have robust scientific proof that non-sugar sweeteners, including Splenda®’s sucralose, can be safe, effective tools for all of us who want to optimize our health and still enjoy the foods and beverages that make life sweet indeed. This is happy holiday news worth sharing!
The Honorable Nan A.S. Hayworth, M.D., is a board-certified ophthalmologist and former Member of Congress from New York.
