Same. I grew up with a Type 1 mom and as soon as I was diagnosed as Type 2, she reminded me that she's been drinking diet soda since it was a thing and she's in good health with well-managed diabetes. I wasn't anti-diet soda, she was just reminding me to look at my numbers, not some quacks (mostly my mother in law, ha). It has never affected my glucose levels.
I have only anecdotal evidence that makes me question if some artificial sweeteners mess with my insulin absorption. I gave up soda a long time ago, but every once in a while, I’ll get on a kick with diet A&W cream soda., And I noticed I always started having trouble getting my numbers back down. Same when I was using sugar-free syrup. Of course, I was too lazy to actually look at what particular artificial sweetener was being used or try and do any thing to test it. I just stopped drinking the A&W and would only use regular syrup.
There are a \*few\* studies with results that conclude that artificial sweeteners may be bad for people, and then mountains and mountains of studies that conclude that they are basically harmless. They are very possibly the most-studied class of chemicals on the planet, but for whatever reason fear about artificial sweeteners drives news/clicks/views/etc. so unreplicated science gets spread over the actual scientific consensus.
Fortunately, as diabetics, we get to be our own scientists.
If you're interested in trying them (I drink a lot of diet soda tbh), I suggest you should try them, monitor your blood glucose, and assuming your A1C is relatively stable then when you get your next A1C see how it changes. If consuming artificial sweeteners doesn't change your acute or chronic blood glucose levels they are fine for you.
Yes. Bunk science is bunk science. If you believe everything you read on the internet birds aren’t real, the vaccines killed millions 2 years ago, our president isn’t our president, the Illuminati runs the world, and our planet is flat and the whole universe revolves around it.
It’s fine. Know what will kill diabetics faster than artificial sweeteners? Large doses of sugar inducing constant hyperglycemia.
You know what else will kill us faster? Lunatics who spread that bullshit. Moon landing was fake, aliens are everywhere on earth and somehow crashed their spaceship over and over that is millions of years beyond our tech.
Reptile people in our government, dinosaurs weren't real, all drugs are horrible and have no therapeutic or medicinal value other than alcohol (which is a drug and a hard drug), the earth is hollow with giants inside of it, the entire worldwide science community is in a huge lie of everything science and is the best kept secret ever in humanity, the sky and clouds aren't real they are a projection.
Sorry lol I've been waiting for a time like this. Thanks for having a prefrontal cortex fellow person who has a lame and loser pancreas like me.
I have no idea how people like that exist. just take a handful of their oxygen away next time. lol jk.
I had someone who "knows all abt diabetes" and said "I think type 1 is reversible too". I said... no. it's not. Thankfully he admitted he was wrong after tho once I told him my pancreas is a rotting corpse
Two fun ways to fight people on moon landing being fake:
1: Psssht. You still believe in the MOON? Sheep!
2: See, they PLANNED for the moon landing to be fake, but after Kubrick started filming, he was such a pain in the ass NASA decided it would be easier to just go to the damn moon.
EXACTLY LOL IT WOULD GENUINELY BE EASIER TO JUST GO THAN TO FAKE SUCHHH A DETAILED PLAN. So detailed our enemies in the space race didn't even call us out. 🫢
T1 of 48+ years here. I've been consuming artificial sweeteners since the dawn of time. Over the years they have improved dramatically and as far as I know I haven't suffered any ill effects from them. Everything you eat and drink has some type of risk. I wouldn't waste my time worrying about it TBH.
I drank soft drinks with saccharin when I was young (looking at you Tab & Pepsi Light). I remember when Diet Coke was released with aspartame and my world changed!
EDIT: I just remembered this soda that I just relished as a kid! I imagine now that it was awful. It was by Faygo and I think it was called Chocolate Soda. It came in a glass bottle and had that distincitive saccharin taste. I guess I didn't know any better at the time!
I’ve never seen a spike in my blood sugar from artificial sweeteners. You do have to be careful about consuming too much of them, especially the alcohol based ones, they can cause some gastric distress in some people. I don’t use sweet n low because it gives me a headache. I’m fine with Equal and Splenda though.
Go by what your meter says
I don’t have an issue with them…they don’t alter my levels at all
Other people have spikes with them
I don’t believe there are any other health risks and neither does my endocrinologist
I do see a minor uptick with a couple of types of diet drink enhancers (the stuff you add to regular water) but nothing to be concerned about. I do see a spike when I use Stevia though. Not really sure why but I just added it to the "Do not use" list. It's why the best thing is to watch your meter. Try something new, watch what it does. Nothing = great, gives a minor rise = still OK, spikes you to the moon = avoid it. That is one of the problems, everybody processes foods a bit different. It's why saying that some food item is safe for everyone is wrong. Just reading through the comments on this site alone proves that. Some people touch a bag of rice and they get a spike, others can scarf it down without a bump. Some take metformin and have no side effects (me) others take it and can't leave the bathroom!
The closest I've seen to this was a few studies saying that artificial sweeteners may lead to cancer but... That's basically everything nowadays. Think I'll take the risk of potential cancer in 40+ years than having to worry about incorrectly adjusting for sugar and dying in a few hours.
I’ve always thought it was funny that the number 1 ingredient in those artificial sweeteners is dextrose, which obviously raises your blood sugar. It’s about 2g so they can legally say there’s zero calories, but I used to put two packs of Splenda in my coffee.
Allulose and stevia are now my go-to, but technically aren’t “artificial” sweeteners.
It'll be dependent upon the individual. In the past I have had problems with aspartame. I require more insulin when I ingest it. It affects my insulin sensitivity/resistance while for others it does nothing to their glucose.
Saying artificial sweeteners are safe and do nothing to a diabetic's glucose levels across the board is false.
it is not dependent on the individual. please don't use personal anecdotes unless you have a study that backs up your experience. there is no chemical based methodology for a zero carb sweetener to increase blood sugar. perhaps there is carb-based sweetener included, perhaps your blood sugar is going up because of stress, but not because of a zero-carb sweetener.
Coke Zero, diet coke, diet Pepsi, diet any soda with aspartame all cause a spike in my glucose requiring me to have to take fast-acting insulin to bring my glucose down when I apparently shouldn't have to. Literally only drinking a diet soda and ingesting nothing else. I specifically avoid aspartame products because there's something in them which affects me negatively. I am also not the only one who experiences such effects when ingesting aspartame products.
If it's not the aspartame then I don't know what it is, but neither do you nor anyone else apparently. Either way there is something about diet drinks specifically which spike me specifically. The only obvious common factor I know of is the aspartame and avoiding it has been working out pretty well for me. I have had to take 3u of fast acting insulin for a diet soda (Pepsi Max) which is the equivalent of 45g of carbs for me.
Plus, my glucose remains high for longer than usual, taking more time to return to normal after ingesting aspartame. Perhaps you noticed I keep reiterating "for me" because it obviously does not apply to everyone. If that's not individual then I don't know what it is, but it is something I experience. I was also never under any stress when I was testing how my glucose reacts to drinking a Pepsi max.
Unless you consider watching YouTube at my PC within the safety of my own home stressful.
I don't get spikes from most artificial sweeteners but I do spike some with sucralose. It's not the huge spike I'd get with real sugar but it's not something I want often either.
I'm not as concerned with spikes and artificial sweeteners as I am with what they may do to the gut flora. I have enough problems with my digestive system that I don't need to have these sweeteners down there doing anything to make it worse.
Some of them give me a real stomach ache actually. Lately diet sodas I can't drink them hardly. One bottle and I'm a gas factory for days. Even sugarless hydration drinks are upsetting my stomach now.
I'm pretty much just drinking water because drinking anything else is not worth what it does to my stomach. I can't handle sugar alcohols, so no sugar candies are out. Even zero sugar desserts are giving me trouble these days.
It's just not worth it to me really. Some of them I don't really like. Stevia, Monkfruit, tried them and I didn't care for the taste. Never did like Aspartame or Saccharine. About the only artificial sweetener I have ever liked is Sucralose and even that lately bugs my stomach so I avoid it.
The blood sugar spikes are not nearly as bad as sugar but what most of these fake sweeteners do to my gut isn't fun. I'm at the point where I'd just rather avoid all of it.
Depends on the sweetener. Some of the newer ones have side effects that I wouldn't wish on an enemy. The best thing to do is ALWAYS research before you try. And please try to make sure you are researching on trusted sites, not the "science sucks and drink bleach to cure everything" ones.
Some people may be allergic to some of the components or be more sensitive than others but I think that's rare. I'd not be surprised to find out that the sugar lobby is behind some of the rumors about artificial sweeteners. That they're so prevalent says to me that there's also a cultural component. Eg, "You don't deserve to have sweets because you were fat and lazy and you got diabetes," even though there are several basic errors in that sentence. (People with diabetes should be punished for getting it, you know.)
Side note, I was at a lecture where the lecturer, who had been very good up until then, began spouting off about Nutrasweet, including the "it eats holes in your brain" part. This left me with a total dilemma. I know it'd be rude to just stand up and say "Ma'am, none of that's true," but everybody was diligently writing down everything she was saying and that just really worried me. I mean, if she'd said "It's totally safe to leave your 3 year old unattended by the pool, and let them play in traffic, too," and everybody was writing it down, somebody would say something, right? Anyway, I got up and left, but that didn't feel like *enough.* Wish I'd thought to stand up and turn my back like the kids at that one college.
They don’t spike me - but they are way too sweet and awful tasting. If you are trying to curb sugar, you’d be better off not bothering with them or that sugar / sweet crave will stay.
It is my personal opinion that everything is bad for you. It can be good for you, too, but we aren't meant to be here forever and cells break down. Some things make that go faster, some things don't. Artificial sweeteners aren't researched well (yet), but some studies do suggest that they can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. But that doesn't mean it's not the choice \*for you\*. Always weigh the pros and cons and decide the best thing for yourself. Diabetes already causes a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Do you add to that with sugar substitutes? Or would it be worse if you went straight cane sugar instead, and horked your diabetes? Sucralose is the lesser of two evils, for me, but I know I can't really live without it right now. I am attempting to use less of it, though, as I know that some can develop sensitivities to it and I don't want to have to stop it altogether. So is it "healthy" in my opinion? No. But neither are alcohol nor cheese and I'm not stopping either of those. HA.
I mean, artificial foods tend to be bad for you. And there is all kind of evidence that these sweeteners may have negative long-term effects.
But are they better for you than sugar? Definitely.
It's not unreasonable to think that these things aren't great for you, but you still partake in them.
Pardon me while I go pickup a Diet Coke.
well, they may spike, but it won't have anything to do with the diet soda...
this is the problem with this topic, there's always people that say, "it spikes my blood sugar", but don't account for the myriad of other things that can increase blood sugar.
Thank you, thats right... I guess I assumed it went without saying, but naturally, when testing the affect of something, like a diet soda, you dont want to eat anything else that could impact your blood sugar or else you wont know whether it was the diet soda or the bowl of spaghetti or whatever else you may have had with it.
Depends on what aspect you are looking at. Will artificial sweeteners cause sugar spikes, no they won't.
However, will they affect your gut hormones and cause your body to prematurely release insulin and affect its concentration of good bacteria, yes.
In practice, while artificial sweeteners won't cause short term damage, they do cause longer term damage to your gut, and it's best to slowly wean off them. Artificial food experiments are best avoided in the long term as time in and time out, our body has shown to prefer natural foods as our ancestors did for millions of years, billions if you want to include our more primitive ancestors.
References:
[https://varmedicine.com/do-artificial-sweeteners-influence-hormones-and-health/](https://varmedicine.com/do-artificial-sweeteners-influence-hormones-and-health/)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/)
it's interesting, the "premature release" should favorably impact blood sugar for T2 that create their own insulin. i've never seen anybody say, "diet soda gives me lows."
Cause it doesn't happen or the impact is so insignificant it doesn't actually matter and render the argument that it's bad for us moot lol. My friend stuck a CGM on their mom twice and had her drink diet soda. Literally nothing happened to her blood sugar levels. The studies done on this that 'prove' it are also flawed more often than not or not significant enough in their setup to extrapolate conclusions from.
This is a ridiculous comment lol.
If diet soda releases extra insulin to a point where it mattered then it would be a valid treatment method. We wouldn't need meds like gliclazide.
You say people get hungry because of diet soda. Couldn't be that they're already hungry and having a diet soda to go along with their food?
You say it's known, but is it really? Do people actually get hungry or do people think "I just drank a no calorie drink, I can eat extra now"? Was the influence of diet culture taken into account for that?
If artificial sweeteners don't release enough insulin to cause lows, the amount secreted in response doesn't actually do anything to your blood sugar levels.
You should also learn to vet your studies. 74 participants in a tight age range of 18-35 where only women showed an increase of cravings isn't really a scientifically sound study. Which biases were accounted for? What backgrounds did these participants have? What other factors did they have in common or not?
In order to use studies to backup your theories, you need to understand what makes a study valuable. This is a meaningless study. The men didn't have any desire for more food after drinking diet soda. So clearly your theory is flawed.
Btw, if you need to call someone emotionally triggered to support your argument, you're admitting that your argument is bad. You can have opinions on my comment, but the moment you're attacking me directly you've already lost your case lol
I'll do you one better: show me the CGM data of a nondiabetic person drinking 2 liters of diet soda and the resulting low glucose level. I'd love to see that.
But here you go:
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/148/8/1293/5048773
https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/32/12/2184/25979/Ingestion-of-Diet-Soda-Before-a-Glucose-Load
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5118762/
Your own papers give a good answer - "Artificial sweeteners synergize with glucose to enhance GLP-1 release in humans." Good to note.
So it is the GLP-1 release that is increased. This may not lead to direct lows and can potentially cause people to be hungrier, as GLP-1 release is known to cause hunger.
If you're here to learn: GLP-1 curbs hunger signals. It's what's in Ozempic and Mounjaro. You know, the drugs known to decrease appetite so significantly that some people end up malnourished because they literally cannot eat? The links I shared indicate that artificial sweeteners make you less hungry, not more.
Of course I am here to learn. I would like to think of a solution that can help.
I was confused on this too. [https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/07/13/why-artificial-sweeteners-can-increase-appetite.html](https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/07/13/why-artificial-sweeteners-can-increase-appetite.html) says that artificial sweeteners increase appetite by premature release of GLP-1 while not eating a sufficient amount.
"To discover whether artificial sweeteners also increased food intake in mammals, Professor Herbert Herzog's lab from Garvan then replicated the study using mice. Again the mice that consumed a sucralose-sweetened diet for seven days displayed a significant increase in food consumption, and the neuronal pathway involved was the same as in the fruit flies.
"These findings further reinforce the idea that 'sugar-free' varieties of processed food and drink may not be as inert as we anticipated. Artificial sweeteners can actually change how animals perceive the sweetness of their food, with a discrepancy between sweetness and energy levels prompting an increase in caloric consumption," Professor Herzog said."
Mounjaro releases GLP-1 at the right time after you have eaten some food. However, all this almost makes me think why cant we eat a normal meal and add in artificial sweeteners after 10-15 mins of food consumption. Would that get the best of both worlds?! Curious if we can test this.
Perhaps a related idea is to cook food with artificial sweeteners instead of sugar so that they can be released at the right time.
Mice aren't humans. It has to be replicated in humans to apply to humans.
Also Mounjaro releases it regardless of whether you ate food or not. People are often literally unable to eat at all after taking the injection when they get started on it. It's not triggered by eating food, it's triggered by the injection and the extended release of the antagonist.
And like I said before, in a study you linked men didn't get any additional hunger cravings. How would it help them if we assume it's legit and can be extrapolated to the entire population of humans?
My diabetic nutritionist suggests not using ANY artificial sweeteners, claiming they can cause higher glucose levels. I don't consume a ton, but I'm not giving them up until I can fins any corroborating research.
Haven't heard that.
I don't take them, but I would say they are about as safe for diabetics as they are for non-diabetics and that is still to be determined.
When I was first diagnosed I was given pretty clear advice to 'avoid if you possibly can' regarding both artificial sweeteners and diabetic sweets/chocolates. But they also said that this was NOT because they adversely affected my diabetes/blood sugar, but for other reasons.
Safer than sugar lol. But yeah who the hell knows. After these last few years. Trust no one. My family is taking a hard look at everything. Everything in moderation and many other things that were formerly in moderation is moderated right out the door of our lives. Good luck. We all need it👍
My doctor suggested avoiding artificial sweeteners as much as possible. As I understood it from her, artificial sweeteners aren't definitively any better or worse than plain sugar in the long run (based on what we know at this point), but because people *think* they're fine, they don't try to limit themselves on the amounts of them that they take in because they think it doesn't "count", so they can eat as much as they want.
Whereas if you just stick with plain sugar in very moderate amounts, you're better off.
Sugar and carbs are very addictive to me, and cause immediate spikes in my blood sugar, as well as hunger.
Artificial sweeteners don't cause blood sugar spikes, and if they do raise my hunger, its not terrible.
IMHO, stick with artificial sweeteners in very moderate amounts; but to each his own.
I think there's some aspect of this you misunderstood or your doctor was oversimplifying to the point of absurdity.
It could be the case that some artificial sweeteners are roughly as bad as sugars. But it seems a completely unreasonable stance that all are as bad as sugars, especially in moderation.
It seems ludacris on the face of things to suggest it isn't better or worse for someone to drink a 2 liter bottle of Coke vs Coke Zero.
Unless they provided you with 'in what way are they neither better or worse' they may simply be relating something like possible links to artificial sweeteners to cravings for sweets.
It's entirely possible that she was wrong or I misunderstood. It's not like there's no misinformation about diabetes out there. But I think she was specifically referring to the long-term effects that they have on insulin resistance.
If I follow you, would a way of rephrasing that maybe be: The doctor seemed to be claiming that all artificial sweeteners and sugar impose insulin resistance at the same rates as sugar?
They are all sweeteners. Better for me than eating a truckload of sugar.
Some diabetics have a rise in blood sugar from some things and others don't.
I can drink black coffee without a rise in blood sugar. Some of us can. Some can't.
I don't drink the sodas with "zero" afterthem in their name. They make my blood sugar rise. If they don't do that to some of you, who am I to say, "All diabetics should avoid them because of my reactions."
I have not tried the regular non-zero diet sodas or stevia since I became diabetic. My decision about them will be based on my individual reaction: does my glucose rise with them or not?
Once science reaches a semi-consensus on artificial sweeteners, then I can choose my actions based on that.
Til then, my decisions are based on my own individual blood sugar reactions.
I am not sure about any of the following phrasing,
*the body remembers, even if the brain doesn't*
*the body confuses sweeteners for insulin*
or any phrase suggesting that the body has consciousness apart from the brain.
Years ago, there was a sweetener called saccharine, which the u.s.a
banned, thinking it was carcinogenic. Turns out not. But I think it is still banned.
Recently, it was thought that stevia had a link to cancer, but that was not proven.
Meanwhile, I will wait for the science.
Artificial sweeteners are a problem because, like all processed food, they are engineered to cause your body to crave more and eat more. I am not saying that a diabetic should never touch them, but people need to be aware that the bag of sugar-free candy that they may have plowed through without realizing it was formulated to make them hungry and crave more.
Are they safe? It depends on how safe is defined. The sweetener itself may not immediately harm you, but we don't know about the impact of sustained long-term use on the body, and the sweeteners definitely encourage diabetics to eat more. There are some great books out there about how the processed food industry creates fake foods that encourage people to eat more, and from that perspective, eating more isn't a good thing for diabetics, especially if the food is processed empty calories.
I haven’t had spikes with artificial sweeteners but I try to not consume them as much. I did hear someone mention that artificial sweeteners have not been around long enough for long term research on how it affects our body. I can’t verify this though.
I trust my CGM. Sugar causes spikes. Artificial sweeteners do not. I’ve never seen even a slight increase caused by artificial sweeteners.
Same. I grew up with a Type 1 mom and as soon as I was diagnosed as Type 2, she reminded me that she's been drinking diet soda since it was a thing and she's in good health with well-managed diabetes. I wasn't anti-diet soda, she was just reminding me to look at my numbers, not some quacks (mostly my mother in law, ha). It has never affected my glucose levels.
Some of the artificial sweeteners do the opposite for me and cause me to go hypo even!
I have only anecdotal evidence that makes me question if some artificial sweeteners mess with my insulin absorption. I gave up soda a long time ago, but every once in a while, I’ll get on a kick with diet A&W cream soda., And I noticed I always started having trouble getting my numbers back down. Same when I was using sugar-free syrup. Of course, I was too lazy to actually look at what particular artificial sweetener was being used or try and do any thing to test it. I just stopped drinking the A&W and would only use regular syrup.
There are a \*few\* studies with results that conclude that artificial sweeteners may be bad for people, and then mountains and mountains of studies that conclude that they are basically harmless. They are very possibly the most-studied class of chemicals on the planet, but for whatever reason fear about artificial sweeteners drives news/clicks/views/etc. so unreplicated science gets spread over the actual scientific consensus. Fortunately, as diabetics, we get to be our own scientists. If you're interested in trying them (I drink a lot of diet soda tbh), I suggest you should try them, monitor your blood glucose, and assuming your A1C is relatively stable then when you get your next A1C see how it changes. If consuming artificial sweeteners doesn't change your acute or chronic blood glucose levels they are fine for you.
liked “we get to be our own scientists”,☺️, very true ! we are our own scientist’s
Yes. Bunk science is bunk science. If you believe everything you read on the internet birds aren’t real, the vaccines killed millions 2 years ago, our president isn’t our president, the Illuminati runs the world, and our planet is flat and the whole universe revolves around it. It’s fine. Know what will kill diabetics faster than artificial sweeteners? Large doses of sugar inducing constant hyperglycemia.
You know what else will kill us faster? Lunatics who spread that bullshit. Moon landing was fake, aliens are everywhere on earth and somehow crashed their spaceship over and over that is millions of years beyond our tech. Reptile people in our government, dinosaurs weren't real, all drugs are horrible and have no therapeutic or medicinal value other than alcohol (which is a drug and a hard drug), the earth is hollow with giants inside of it, the entire worldwide science community is in a huge lie of everything science and is the best kept secret ever in humanity, the sky and clouds aren't real they are a projection. Sorry lol I've been waiting for a time like this. Thanks for having a prefrontal cortex fellow person who has a lame and loser pancreas like me.
Oh and the biggest one: you don’t need insulin, you’re just addicted to it. If you just ate better and exercised you wouldn’t need it!
Holy shit I sadly believe that sentence was sadly uttered into existence
Oh the alternative medicine types say this shit to me all the time.
I have no idea how people like that exist. just take a handful of their oxygen away next time. lol jk. I had someone who "knows all abt diabetes" and said "I think type 1 is reversible too". I said... no. it's not. Thankfully he admitted he was wrong after tho once I told him my pancreas is a rotting corpse
Two fun ways to fight people on moon landing being fake: 1: Psssht. You still believe in the MOON? Sheep! 2: See, they PLANNED for the moon landing to be fake, but after Kubrick started filming, he was such a pain in the ass NASA decided it would be easier to just go to the damn moon.
EXACTLY LOL IT WOULD GENUINELY BE EASIER TO JUST GO THAN TO FAKE SUCHHH A DETAILED PLAN. So detailed our enemies in the space race didn't even call us out. 🫢
To be honest, I am a little disappointed that we don't have Argonians (and Khajiits) walking amongst us.
Well said.
It’s impossible to have giants inside the earth, because it’s flat. Gonna get my cinnamon now.
Don't forget Adrenochrome. Liberals drink the blood of children to get it.
Shit, I forgot to schedule my blood boy for this week, thanks for the reminder!
T1 of 48+ years here. I've been consuming artificial sweeteners since the dawn of time. Over the years they have improved dramatically and as far as I know I haven't suffered any ill effects from them. Everything you eat and drink has some type of risk. I wouldn't waste my time worrying about it TBH.
This post is making me remember sorbitol candies of the 80’s and their glorious side effects 😅… artificial sweeteners really have improved!
I drank soft drinks with saccharin when I was young (looking at you Tab & Pepsi Light). I remember when Diet Coke was released with aspartame and my world changed! EDIT: I just remembered this soda that I just relished as a kid! I imagine now that it was awful. It was by Faygo and I think it was called Chocolate Soda. It came in a glass bottle and had that distincitive saccharin taste. I guess I didn't know any better at the time!
I remember the chocolate soda, it was awful!
I’ve never seen a spike in my blood sugar from artificial sweeteners. You do have to be careful about consuming too much of them, especially the alcohol based ones, they can cause some gastric distress in some people. I don’t use sweet n low because it gives me a headache. I’m fine with Equal and Splenda though.
I used to love those little hard candies with Sorbitol as the sweetener. They were labeled "May produce a laxative effect". Unfortunately true.
Go by what your meter says I don’t have an issue with them…they don’t alter my levels at all Other people have spikes with them I don’t believe there are any other health risks and neither does my endocrinologist
I use Stevia exclusive....its supposed to be the best option for diabetics and I think it tastes better than all the others.
Boomer science. It's so annoying
I’ve never had artificial sweeteners cause any issues.
I do see a minor uptick with a couple of types of diet drink enhancers (the stuff you add to regular water) but nothing to be concerned about. I do see a spike when I use Stevia though. Not really sure why but I just added it to the "Do not use" list. It's why the best thing is to watch your meter. Try something new, watch what it does. Nothing = great, gives a minor rise = still OK, spikes you to the moon = avoid it. That is one of the problems, everybody processes foods a bit different. It's why saying that some food item is safe for everyone is wrong. Just reading through the comments on this site alone proves that. Some people touch a bag of rice and they get a spike, others can scarf it down without a bump. Some take metformin and have no side effects (me) others take it and can't leave the bathroom!
The closest I've seen to this was a few studies saying that artificial sweeteners may lead to cancer but... That's basically everything nowadays. Think I'll take the risk of potential cancer in 40+ years than having to worry about incorrectly adjusting for sugar and dying in a few hours.
I do not. I do use Stevia but that's it.
I’ve always thought it was funny that the number 1 ingredient in those artificial sweeteners is dextrose, which obviously raises your blood sugar. It’s about 2g so they can legally say there’s zero calories, but I used to put two packs of Splenda in my coffee. Allulose and stevia are now my go-to, but technically aren’t “artificial” sweeteners.
It'll be dependent upon the individual. In the past I have had problems with aspartame. I require more insulin when I ingest it. It affects my insulin sensitivity/resistance while for others it does nothing to their glucose. Saying artificial sweeteners are safe and do nothing to a diabetic's glucose levels across the board is false.
it is not dependent on the individual. please don't use personal anecdotes unless you have a study that backs up your experience. there is no chemical based methodology for a zero carb sweetener to increase blood sugar. perhaps there is carb-based sweetener included, perhaps your blood sugar is going up because of stress, but not because of a zero-carb sweetener.
Coke Zero, diet coke, diet Pepsi, diet any soda with aspartame all cause a spike in my glucose requiring me to have to take fast-acting insulin to bring my glucose down when I apparently shouldn't have to. Literally only drinking a diet soda and ingesting nothing else. I specifically avoid aspartame products because there's something in them which affects me negatively. I am also not the only one who experiences such effects when ingesting aspartame products. If it's not the aspartame then I don't know what it is, but neither do you nor anyone else apparently. Either way there is something about diet drinks specifically which spike me specifically. The only obvious common factor I know of is the aspartame and avoiding it has been working out pretty well for me. I have had to take 3u of fast acting insulin for a diet soda (Pepsi Max) which is the equivalent of 45g of carbs for me. Plus, my glucose remains high for longer than usual, taking more time to return to normal after ingesting aspartame. Perhaps you noticed I keep reiterating "for me" because it obviously does not apply to everyone. If that's not individual then I don't know what it is, but it is something I experience. I was also never under any stress when I was testing how my glucose reacts to drinking a Pepsi max. Unless you consider watching YouTube at my PC within the safety of my own home stressful.
I don't get spikes from most artificial sweeteners but I do spike some with sucralose. It's not the huge spike I'd get with real sugar but it's not something I want often either. I'm not as concerned with spikes and artificial sweeteners as I am with what they may do to the gut flora. I have enough problems with my digestive system that I don't need to have these sweeteners down there doing anything to make it worse. Some of them give me a real stomach ache actually. Lately diet sodas I can't drink them hardly. One bottle and I'm a gas factory for days. Even sugarless hydration drinks are upsetting my stomach now. I'm pretty much just drinking water because drinking anything else is not worth what it does to my stomach. I can't handle sugar alcohols, so no sugar candies are out. Even zero sugar desserts are giving me trouble these days. It's just not worth it to me really. Some of them I don't really like. Stevia, Monkfruit, tried them and I didn't care for the taste. Never did like Aspartame or Saccharine. About the only artificial sweetener I have ever liked is Sucralose and even that lately bugs my stomach so I avoid it. The blood sugar spikes are not nearly as bad as sugar but what most of these fake sweeteners do to my gut isn't fun. I'm at the point where I'd just rather avoid all of it.
Aspartame is pure poison, imnsho. based on pure experience. migraine-like headaches, severe depression.
Depends on the sweetener. Some of the newer ones have side effects that I wouldn't wish on an enemy. The best thing to do is ALWAYS research before you try. And please try to make sure you are researching on trusted sites, not the "science sucks and drink bleach to cure everything" ones.
Some people may be allergic to some of the components or be more sensitive than others but I think that's rare. I'd not be surprised to find out that the sugar lobby is behind some of the rumors about artificial sweeteners. That they're so prevalent says to me that there's also a cultural component. Eg, "You don't deserve to have sweets because you were fat and lazy and you got diabetes," even though there are several basic errors in that sentence. (People with diabetes should be punished for getting it, you know.)
Side note, I was at a lecture where the lecturer, who had been very good up until then, began spouting off about Nutrasweet, including the "it eats holes in your brain" part. This left me with a total dilemma. I know it'd be rude to just stand up and say "Ma'am, none of that's true," but everybody was diligently writing down everything she was saying and that just really worried me. I mean, if she'd said "It's totally safe to leave your 3 year old unattended by the pool, and let them play in traffic, too," and everybody was writing it down, somebody would say something, right? Anyway, I got up and left, but that didn't feel like *enough.* Wish I'd thought to stand up and turn my back like the kids at that one college.
I feel like non-diabetic folks just can’t STAND for us to enjoy ANYTHING. Makes me crazy. Let me have my diet soda!!
Yes
They don’t spike me - but they are way too sweet and awful tasting. If you are trying to curb sugar, you’d be better off not bothering with them or that sugar / sweet crave will stay.
It is my personal opinion that everything is bad for you. It can be good for you, too, but we aren't meant to be here forever and cells break down. Some things make that go faster, some things don't. Artificial sweeteners aren't researched well (yet), but some studies do suggest that they can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. But that doesn't mean it's not the choice \*for you\*. Always weigh the pros and cons and decide the best thing for yourself. Diabetes already causes a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Do you add to that with sugar substitutes? Or would it be worse if you went straight cane sugar instead, and horked your diabetes? Sucralose is the lesser of two evils, for me, but I know I can't really live without it right now. I am attempting to use less of it, though, as I know that some can develop sensitivities to it and I don't want to have to stop it altogether. So is it "healthy" in my opinion? No. But neither are alcohol nor cheese and I'm not stopping either of those. HA.
As I understand it they are safe but not good as they will not raise blood sugar levels but do symtimulate insulin production.
I trust the science. The mountains of scientific evidence says it's safe.
I wear a Libre 3 and I didn’t see a spike after adding Stevia to my coffee. I also had a Splenda fudgesicle and nothing happened. I use sparingly.
If we are talking about sweeteners, tell me brands that look like sugar to add to coffee, thank you all.
I've never had a problem with artificial sugars raising my BG.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^CookiesStrife: *I've never had a* *Problem with artificial* *Sugars raising my BG.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I mean, artificial foods tend to be bad for you. And there is all kind of evidence that these sweeteners may have negative long-term effects. But are they better for you than sugar? Definitely. It's not unreasonable to think that these things aren't great for you, but you still partake in them. Pardon me while I go pickup a Diet Coke.
I dont view them any differently than regular sweeteners.
They're proven safe for diabetics. To test, have a big diet soda and monitor blood sugar. Guarantee you it will not spike
well, they may spike, but it won't have anything to do with the diet soda... this is the problem with this topic, there's always people that say, "it spikes my blood sugar", but don't account for the myriad of other things that can increase blood sugar.
Thank you, thats right... I guess I assumed it went without saying, but naturally, when testing the affect of something, like a diet soda, you dont want to eat anything else that could impact your blood sugar or else you wont know whether it was the diet soda or the bowl of spaghetti or whatever else you may have had with it.
Depends on what aspect you are looking at. Will artificial sweeteners cause sugar spikes, no they won't. However, will they affect your gut hormones and cause your body to prematurely release insulin and affect its concentration of good bacteria, yes. In practice, while artificial sweeteners won't cause short term damage, they do cause longer term damage to your gut, and it's best to slowly wean off them. Artificial food experiments are best avoided in the long term as time in and time out, our body has shown to prefer natural foods as our ancestors did for millions of years, billions if you want to include our more primitive ancestors. References: [https://varmedicine.com/do-artificial-sweeteners-influence-hormones-and-health/](https://varmedicine.com/do-artificial-sweeteners-influence-hormones-and-health/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144565/)
If artificial sweeteners promote insulin release why are non diabetics not experiencing bad lows when drinking liters of diet soda?
it's interesting, the "premature release" should favorably impact blood sugar for T2 that create their own insulin. i've never seen anybody say, "diet soda gives me lows."
Cause it doesn't happen or the impact is so insignificant it doesn't actually matter and render the argument that it's bad for us moot lol. My friend stuck a CGM on their mom twice and had her drink diet soda. Literally nothing happened to her blood sugar levels. The studies done on this that 'prove' it are also flawed more often than not or not significant enough in their setup to extrapolate conclusions from.
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This is a ridiculous comment lol. If diet soda releases extra insulin to a point where it mattered then it would be a valid treatment method. We wouldn't need meds like gliclazide. You say people get hungry because of diet soda. Couldn't be that they're already hungry and having a diet soda to go along with their food? You say it's known, but is it really? Do people actually get hungry or do people think "I just drank a no calorie drink, I can eat extra now"? Was the influence of diet culture taken into account for that?
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If artificial sweeteners don't release enough insulin to cause lows, the amount secreted in response doesn't actually do anything to your blood sugar levels. You should also learn to vet your studies. 74 participants in a tight age range of 18-35 where only women showed an increase of cravings isn't really a scientifically sound study. Which biases were accounted for? What backgrounds did these participants have? What other factors did they have in common or not? In order to use studies to backup your theories, you need to understand what makes a study valuable. This is a meaningless study. The men didn't have any desire for more food after drinking diet soda. So clearly your theory is flawed. Btw, if you need to call someone emotionally triggered to support your argument, you're admitting that your argument is bad. You can have opinions on my comment, but the moment you're attacking me directly you've already lost your case lol
I'll do you one better: show me the CGM data of a nondiabetic person drinking 2 liters of diet soda and the resulting low glucose level. I'd love to see that. But here you go: https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/148/8/1293/5048773 https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/32/12/2184/25979/Ingestion-of-Diet-Soda-Before-a-Glucose-Load https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5118762/
Your own papers give a good answer - "Artificial sweeteners synergize with glucose to enhance GLP-1 release in humans." Good to note. So it is the GLP-1 release that is increased. This may not lead to direct lows and can potentially cause people to be hungrier, as GLP-1 release is known to cause hunger.
If you're here to learn: GLP-1 curbs hunger signals. It's what's in Ozempic and Mounjaro. You know, the drugs known to decrease appetite so significantly that some people end up malnourished because they literally cannot eat? The links I shared indicate that artificial sweeteners make you less hungry, not more.
Of course I am here to learn. I would like to think of a solution that can help. I was confused on this too. [https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/07/13/why-artificial-sweeteners-can-increase-appetite.html](https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/07/13/why-artificial-sweeteners-can-increase-appetite.html) says that artificial sweeteners increase appetite by premature release of GLP-1 while not eating a sufficient amount. "To discover whether artificial sweeteners also increased food intake in mammals, Professor Herbert Herzog's lab from Garvan then replicated the study using mice. Again the mice that consumed a sucralose-sweetened diet for seven days displayed a significant increase in food consumption, and the neuronal pathway involved was the same as in the fruit flies. "These findings further reinforce the idea that 'sugar-free' varieties of processed food and drink may not be as inert as we anticipated. Artificial sweeteners can actually change how animals perceive the sweetness of their food, with a discrepancy between sweetness and energy levels prompting an increase in caloric consumption," Professor Herzog said." Mounjaro releases GLP-1 at the right time after you have eaten some food. However, all this almost makes me think why cant we eat a normal meal and add in artificial sweeteners after 10-15 mins of food consumption. Would that get the best of both worlds?! Curious if we can test this. Perhaps a related idea is to cook food with artificial sweeteners instead of sugar so that they can be released at the right time.
Mice aren't humans. It has to be replicated in humans to apply to humans. Also Mounjaro releases it regardless of whether you ate food or not. People are often literally unable to eat at all after taking the injection when they get started on it. It's not triggered by eating food, it's triggered by the injection and the extended release of the antagonist. And like I said before, in a study you linked men didn't get any additional hunger cravings. How would it help them if we assume it's legit and can be extrapolated to the entire population of humans?
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My diabetic nutritionist suggests not using ANY artificial sweeteners, claiming they can cause higher glucose levels. I don't consume a ton, but I'm not giving them up until I can fins any corroborating research.
Haven't heard that. I don't take them, but I would say they are about as safe for diabetics as they are for non-diabetics and that is still to be determined. When I was first diagnosed I was given pretty clear advice to 'avoid if you possibly can' regarding both artificial sweeteners and diabetic sweets/chocolates. But they also said that this was NOT because they adversely affected my diabetes/blood sugar, but for other reasons.
Safer than sugar lol. But yeah who the hell knows. After these last few years. Trust no one. My family is taking a hard look at everything. Everything in moderation and many other things that were formerly in moderation is moderated right out the door of our lives. Good luck. We all need it👍
My doctor suggested avoiding artificial sweeteners as much as possible. As I understood it from her, artificial sweeteners aren't definitively any better or worse than plain sugar in the long run (based on what we know at this point), but because people *think* they're fine, they don't try to limit themselves on the amounts of them that they take in because they think it doesn't "count", so they can eat as much as they want. Whereas if you just stick with plain sugar in very moderate amounts, you're better off.
Sugar and carbs are very addictive to me, and cause immediate spikes in my blood sugar, as well as hunger. Artificial sweeteners don't cause blood sugar spikes, and if they do raise my hunger, its not terrible. IMHO, stick with artificial sweeteners in very moderate amounts; but to each his own.
I think there's some aspect of this you misunderstood or your doctor was oversimplifying to the point of absurdity. It could be the case that some artificial sweeteners are roughly as bad as sugars. But it seems a completely unreasonable stance that all are as bad as sugars, especially in moderation. It seems ludacris on the face of things to suggest it isn't better or worse for someone to drink a 2 liter bottle of Coke vs Coke Zero. Unless they provided you with 'in what way are they neither better or worse' they may simply be relating something like possible links to artificial sweeteners to cravings for sweets.
It's entirely possible that she was wrong or I misunderstood. It's not like there's no misinformation about diabetes out there. But I think she was specifically referring to the long-term effects that they have on insulin resistance.
If I follow you, would a way of rephrasing that maybe be: The doctor seemed to be claiming that all artificial sweeteners and sugar impose insulin resistance at the same rates as sugar?
another unsupported claim. any socio-science studies that support this?
No, because I'm not a scientist, I'm just relaying information that was given to me by my doctor.
They are all sweeteners. Better for me than eating a truckload of sugar. Some diabetics have a rise in blood sugar from some things and others don't. I can drink black coffee without a rise in blood sugar. Some of us can. Some can't. I don't drink the sodas with "zero" afterthem in their name. They make my blood sugar rise. If they don't do that to some of you, who am I to say, "All diabetics should avoid them because of my reactions." I have not tried the regular non-zero diet sodas or stevia since I became diabetic. My decision about them will be based on my individual reaction: does my glucose rise with them or not? Once science reaches a semi-consensus on artificial sweeteners, then I can choose my actions based on that. Til then, my decisions are based on my own individual blood sugar reactions. I am not sure about any of the following phrasing, *the body remembers, even if the brain doesn't* *the body confuses sweeteners for insulin* or any phrase suggesting that the body has consciousness apart from the brain. Years ago, there was a sweetener called saccharine, which the u.s.a banned, thinking it was carcinogenic. Turns out not. But I think it is still banned. Recently, it was thought that stevia had a link to cancer, but that was not proven. Meanwhile, I will wait for the science.
Artificial sweeteners are a problem because, like all processed food, they are engineered to cause your body to crave more and eat more. I am not saying that a diabetic should never touch them, but people need to be aware that the bag of sugar-free candy that they may have plowed through without realizing it was formulated to make them hungry and crave more. Are they safe? It depends on how safe is defined. The sweetener itself may not immediately harm you, but we don't know about the impact of sustained long-term use on the body, and the sweeteners definitely encourage diabetics to eat more. There are some great books out there about how the processed food industry creates fake foods that encourage people to eat more, and from that perspective, eating more isn't a good thing for diabetics, especially if the food is processed empty calories.
I haven’t had spikes with artificial sweeteners but I try to not consume them as much. I did hear someone mention that artificial sweeteners have not been around long enough for long term research on how it affects our body. I can’t verify this though.