Zero calorie sweetener linked to heart attack and stroke, study finds

[Diamond_Dog]

CNN
—
A sugar replacement called erythritol — used to add bulk or sweeten stevia, monk-fruit, and keto reduced-sugar products — has been linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and death, according to a new study.

“The degree of risk was not modest,” said lead author Dr. Stanley Hazen, director of the center for cardiovascular diagnostics and prevention at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute.

People with existing risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke if they had the highest levels of erythritol in their blood, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.

If your blood level of erythritol was in the top 25% compared to the bottom 25%, there was about a two-fold higher risk for heart attack and stroke. It’s on par with the strongest of cardiac risk factors, like diabetes,” Hazen said.

Additional lab and animal research presented in the paper revealed erythritol appeared to be causing blood platelets to clot more readily. Clots can break off and travel to the heart, triggering a heart attack, or to the brain, triggering a stroke.

“This certainly sounds an alarm,” said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health, a hospital in Denver, Colorado, who was not involved in the research.

“There appears to be a clotting risk from using erythritol,” Freeman said. “Obviously, more research is needed, but in an abundance of caution, it might make sense to limit erythritol in your diet for now.”

(snip)

Thirty grams was enough to make blood levels of erythritol go up a thousandfold,” Hazen said. “It remained elevated above the threshold necessary to trigger and heighten clotting risk for the following two to three days.”

Just how much is 30 grams of erythritol? The equivalent of eating a pint of keto ice cream, Hazen said.

More at link
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/health/zero-calorie-sweetener-heart-attack-stroke-wellness/index.html

[Sanity Claws]

1. Seems to be used in Keto products

Glad I never got into Keto prepared products or erythritol

[hippywife]

8. It's not just for keto.

We diabetics use artificial sweeteners a lot, and most of them, be they stevia, monkfruit, or whatever, are bulked up with erythritol. You have to check label ingredients to avoid it.

[onecaliberal]

10. We use Truvia and this is in it... NOT good news.

[exboyfil]

2. I eat some erythritol

but not a lot. Lilly's chocolate bars has it. I just encouraged my diabetic wife to eat it instead of her normal chocolate. Maybe I need to rethink that recommendation.

No free lunch it seems. If it is sweet, it is bad for you in some way. I guess shut up and eat your blackberries.

[Bayard]

3. Oh, great

I switched to stevia as a healthier alternative to other sweeteners. I don't think I'd fall in the range they're talking about though, with less than a tsp each in two cups of coffee a day. More in my summer fruit smoothies.

[Warpy]

4. There are times you want to promote blood clotting

I wonder if this stuff might eventually be useful for that. A lot of great medical discoveries have come out of left field like this.

In the meantime, studies of sucralose and aspartame have been so all over the place that it appears they're mostly useful as studies of confirmation bias. Bottom line: they're safe if you don't overdo, something that can also be said of water.

A good overview without a hell of a lot of Medicalese is at https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/78/9/725/5739345?login=false

[brush]

5. Does anyone know if this is the sweetner used in zero calorie soft drinks?

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Read the label. I never drink soft drinks, so don't know.

[Diraven]

7. I think they use aspartame

Same a Nutrasweet. Have for a long time. Ironically stevia has been pushed as an alternative to artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose (Splenda) because it's "natural", as if that automatically makes it safer.

[wishstar]

16. Most soft drinks use aspartame or sucralose but some sports drinks use erythritol

[brush]

17. Thank you.

[Hope22]

9. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[bucolic_frolic]

11. I'm all for science. But give me real unadulterated food. Only the body knows what to do with it.

[PennyC]

12. Well, I cook with this stuff!

The studies seem to be inconclusive; some researchers said they would continue to use it. The worrying results only occurred in people who already had heart conditions. That's not me. I will be careful, though, with dishes I make for husband, who has high blood pressure.

[mountain grammy]

13. Number one ingredient in Truvia

which I use daily in my coffee and in baking.

Back to sugar.

Thank you for posting this.

[wishstar]

18. You can find bags of Stevia that don't have erythritol

While the more expensive Truvia brand seems to all have erythritol, many "generic" store brand Stevia products do not list erythritol along with stevia in their ingredients. So far only erythritol is linked to the blood clotting problem.

[niyad]

14. Because of my weird chemical sensitivities, I long ago learned to avoid ANYTHING

that said, sugar-free, zero-calorie, diet, healthy, low-fat, etc. In the last couple of years, the list has expanded to include anything with the words keto, paleo and gluten-free.

[phylny]

15. I use Sweetleaf liquid sweetener.

I get it on Amazon. I looked at the ingredients, and it appears there's no erythritol.

[wishstar]

19. I looked at all of my sugar free products-gum, soda, ice cream, candy and none have erythritol

but the individual packs of Truvia and individual packs of Aldi's Stevia had erythritol listed so I have tossed them esp. since spouse has a hereditary blood clotting condition and is on warfarin. We don't use those little packs much anyway

Fortunately the big bags we have of Stevia from Aldi and Ingles don't have erythritol listed and that's what we use most often.

[Quixote1818]

20. Part sounds like more reverse causation junk science but one part caught my eye in a big way.

Last edited Tue Feb 28, 2023, 02:45 AM - Edit history (1)

They are taking people who already have major health problems are probably obease, have metabolic syndrom to begin with and are switching from sugar to these artificial sweetners near the end of their life to get a handle on things like insulin resistance.

However, this part does show cause and effect: Additional lab and animal research presented in the paper revealed that erythritol appeared to be causing blood platelets to clot more readily. Clots can break off and travel to the heart, triggering a heart attack, or to the brain, triggering a stroke.

After reading that part I would not touch the stuff.

Then I found this fellow who noticed the same thing:

[Delphinus]

21. That was

intriguing. And, a pint of ice cream? That's a lot of ice cream for one serving - seems that might kind of skew the work.

[Quixote1818]

22. I wonder if you can just take a baby aspirin whenever you eat anything with this? LOL nt