He forgot to wash his hands before lunch and tasted something sweet on his fingers. After tasting everything in his lab to determine the source, he figured out it was benzoic sulfimide, a coal tar derivative that is times sweeter than sugar. Fun fact: Monsanto got its start in selling saccharin. By , saccharin was already widely used in sodas and canned goods, but most Americans had no idea it was in their food.
As part of a series of sweeping food and drug reforms, Harvey Wiley, the head of the chemical division of the United States Department of Agriculture, recommended banning saccharin for possibly being toxic. The person who got in his way was President Theodore Roosevelt, who was on a weight-loss regimen that included a dose of saccharin prescribed by his doctor. The sweetener was eventually banned in , but the decision was reversed during World War I, when sugar rations necessitated the use of saccharin as a substitute.
Once the war was over, people continued to enjoy the calorie-free sweetener. The introduction of a sweetener called cyclamate to the American market coincided with the diet soda boom of the s. Millions more eat foods sweetened with combinations of the fake stuff. But just how healthy are they? The year history of these nonnutritive options is full of health concerns, both overblown and real.
Hide Caption. Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg was eating dinner when he made an amazing discovery: The roll he'd just bitten into tasted extremely sweet. Realizing the sugary, metallic taste had come from his own hands, he rushed back to the lab to find the source. After tasting everything in sight -- not exactly good lab safety protocol -- he discovered the sweetness came from an accidental chemical reaction between coal tar derivatives yum!
That's one version of the story. Another account says Fahlberg's American boss, Dr. Ira Remsen, was the diner who forgot to wash up before eating. Regardless, it was Fahlberg who applied for a patent for saccharin as an inexpensive sugar substitute. They were required to weigh in and take their vital signs before each meal and report any physical reactions. They also had to supply their urine and feces for analysis.
Harvey Wiley, chief of the U. Department of Agriculture's chemical division. He strongly believed that saccharin was a danger to health and took his case to President Theodore Roosevelt. But Roosevelt would have none of it, as he was using saccharin to manage his weight. Wiley describes the President's reaction in his autobiography: "'You say saccharin is injurious to health?
Why, Doctor Rixey gives it to me every day. Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot. Cyclamate was linked to bladder, urinary, lung, stomach and reproductive tumors in the rodents. While later studies found the bladder issues were due to parasites and other urinary peculiarities unique to rats, the damage was done. The FDA banned cyclamate in While other countries have declared cyclamate safe and use it in their food, the FDA ban remains in the United States.
When cyclamate was banned, the makers of Sweet'N Low quickly switched to an all-saccharin version, but suspicions remained about saccharin's role as a carcinogen in rats.
In Congress decreed that any food sweetened with saccharin must carry a scary warning label: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
Schlatter was looking for an anti-ulcer drug when he stumbled upon the sweet taste of aspartame by you guessed it licking his finger. A mix of aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally occurring amino acids, aspartame entered the growing artificial sweetener market in Today it's sold as Equal, Nutrasweet or Sugar Twin. Unlike the other artificial sweeteners, which are usually excreted unchanged, aspartame can be metabolized, so it does have minimal calories about 4 per gram.
It also has some known uncommon health concerns. It should not be used by anyone with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria or certain rare liver disorders, or pregnant women with high levels of phenylalanine in their blood, because it doesn't metabolize properly in those individuals. The FDA requires any food made with aspartame to put that restriction on the label. Sucralose was born. It's made by replacing three hydrogen and oxygen atoms in sucrose with chlorine atoms, making it about times sweeter than sugar.
Today we know this chlorine-based sugar derivative as Splenda. As the most heat-stable of all of the artificial sweeteners, it's popular with food manufacturers.
So it was a shock when researchers at the University of Texas found that conventional wisdom was wrong, when they analyzed eight years of data from the San Antonio Heart Study. The more diet sodas a person drank, the more likely he or she was to gain weight. To this day, no one knows why. The sugar substitutes are thoroughly investigated for safety with hundreds of scientific studies and then approved by different regulatory authorities like the U. Some agents are approved with warning labels too.
So further exploration is required with well-designed large-scale studies in the general population. On the anecdotal evidence, it has been concluded that based on analysis of the database of case histories, there are a number of symptoms that are recurrently reported by individuals who believe that they are caused by sugar substitute ingestion.
The information gathered in this analysis can be useful in guiding the design and format of any investigative study that may be undertaken to determine individual sensitivity to sugar substitutes. Source of Support: Nil. Conflict of Interest: None declared. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List J Pharmacol Pharmacother v. J Pharmacol Pharmacother. Kirtida R.
Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Address for correspondence: Dr. E-mail: ni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Sugar is an inseparable part of the food we consume. Keywords: Artificial sweetener, aspartame, sugar substitute. Open in a separate window. Table 2 Artificial sugar substitutes[ 6 , 7 ]. Dental care Although liquid preparations are particularly suitable for children, many contain sucrose which encourages dental decay. Diabetes mellitus People with diabetes have difficulty in regulating their blood sugar levels.
Reactive hypoglycemia Individuals with reactive hypoglycemia will produce an excess of insulin after quickly absorbing glucose into the bloodstream.
Enhances and extends flavors Aspartame has the ability to intensify and extend fruit flavors, such as cherry and orange, in foods and beverages. Avoiding processed foods Individuals may opt to substitute refined white sugar with less-processed sugars such as fruit juice or maple syrup. Cost Many sugar substitutes are cheaper than sugar.
Aspartame Aspartame, discovered in is a low-calorie sweetener with a sugar-like taste but is approximately times sweeter than sucrose.
Saccharin Saccharin was discovered over a century ago and has been used as a non-caloric sweetener in foods and beverages for more than years. Sucralose Sucralose was discovered by British researchers in Acesulfame K Acesulfame potassium is a non-caloric sweetener with a clean, quickly perceptible sweet taste.
Neotame Neotame is a no-calorie sweetener, which is a derivative of the dipeptide composed of the amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Tagatose This new synthetic additive is chemically related to fructose, but is poorly absorbed by the body. FDA No Calories. Sugar demand rising at expense of sweeteners, claims sugar industry.
Low calorie sweetners and other sugar substitutes: A review of the safety issues. Bellisle F, Drewnowski A. Intense sweeteners, energy intake and the control of body weight.
Eur J Clin Nutr. Mackie IC. Children's dental health and medicines that contain sugar. Health Educ Res. The Calorie Control Council. DeNoon, Daniel J. Hampton T. Sugar substitutes linked to weight gain. Prodolliet J, Bruelhart M.
Stegink LD. Investigation of solid-state reactions using vari-able temperature X-ray powder diffractrometry. Aspartame hemihydrate. Pharm Res. Experimental evaluation of antipyretic and an-algesic activity of aspartame. Indian J Pharmacol. A comparison of chronic aspartame exposure to aspirin on inflammation, hyperalgesia and open field activity following carrageenan-induced monoarthritis.
Life Sci. Interference of rheumatoid factor activity by aspartame, a dipeptide methyl ester. J Mol Recognit. Aspartame a Susceptibility to Headache. N Engl J Med. Markle N. Contra Aspartam. Jacob SE, Stechschulte S. Formaldehyde, aspartame and migraines: A possible connection. Systemic contact dermatitis of the eyelids caused by formaldehyde derived from aspartame?
Contact Dermatitis. Effect of methanol-induced oxidative stress on the neuroimmune system of experimental rats. It is approximately 20, times sweeter than table sugar sucrose. FDA approved advantame for use as a general purpose sweetener and flavor enhancer in foods except in meat and poultry , under certain conditions of use, in In determining the safety of advantame, FDA reviewed data from 37 animal and human studies designed to identify possible toxic effects, including effects on the immune system, reproductive and developmental systems, and nervous system.
FDA also reviewed pharmacokinetic and carcinogenicity studies, as well as several additional exploratory and screening studies.
Steviol glycosides are natural constituents of the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni Bertoni, a plant native to parts of South America and commonly known as Stevia. They are non-nutritive sweeteners and are reported to be to times sweeter than table sugar. The use of stevia leaf and crude stevia extracts is not considered GRAS and their import into the United States is not permitted for use as sweeteners. For details, see Import Alert Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle fruit extract SGFE contains varying levels of mogrosides, which are the non-nutritive constituents of the fruit primarily responsible for the characteristic sweetness of SGFE.
SGFE, depending on the mogroside content, is reported to be to times sweeter than sugar. Approved as a sweetener only in certain special dietary foods and as an additive used for certain technological purposes. Calculations assume a packet of high-intensity sweetener is as sweet as two teaspoons of sugar.
A numerical ADI may not be deemed necessary for several reasons, including evidence of the ingredient's safety at levels well above the amounts needed to achieve the desired effect e.
What is the difference between nutritive and non-nutritive high-intensity sweeteners? Nutritive sweeteners add caloric value to the foods that contain them, while non-nutritive sweeteners are very low in calories or contain no calories at all. Specifically, aspartame, the only approved nutritive high-intensity sweetener, contains more than two percent of the calories in an equivalent amount of sugar, as opposed to non-nutritive sweeteners that contain less than two percent of the calories in an equivalent amount of sugar.
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