Free Republic

Sugar substitutes found in many supermarket foods have been shown to kill off antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause pneumonia and sepsis. Three artificial sweeteners used in products such as diet drinks, yogurts and desserts dramatically halt the growth of multidrug-resistant priority pathogens, but they also reduce the bacteria's resistance to commonly used antibiotics, meaning fewer are needed. This discovery could lead the fight against superbugs. "Artificial sweeteners are present in all diet and sugar-free foods," said Dr. Ronan McCarthy. "We discovered that these same sweeteners that you have with your coffee or in your 'sugar-free' soda could kill very dangerous bacteria...

Just because an artificial sweetener has zero or very few calories doesn't mean there are zero (or very few) health consequences to consuming the sachet. A randomized controlled trial recently found that regular consumption of sucralose (marketed as Splenda) and saccharin (marketed as Sweet'N Low) can alter microbes in the gut and elevate the body's response to sugar. These non-nutritive sweeteners are presumed to be chemically inert, but that may not actually be true. The findings of the recent trial, conducted among 120 participants who identified as strict abstainers from artificial sweeteners of any kind, suggest that regularly consuming some...

Neotame Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012 – 2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017 – 2027 Neotame is an artificial sweetener with off-white to white powder and an intensely sweet taste. Neotame is manufactured from 3,3 –dimethylbutyraldehyde and aspartame. Neotame purification and isolation is carried out by distillation of a portion of the methanol followed by addition of water. Neotame comes in the second generation of artificial sweetener followed by sucralose. Neotame delivers great taste and enhances flavors when used as a sweetener. However, neotame clean, sweet taste like sugar is used in small amount to sweeten foods and beverage. This is...

During the rare moments when Stephen Colbert wasn’t talking over him, Jeb! Bush said a couple of things the other night that go a long way to explaining why, with enough campaign cash to pay off the national debt and buy every adult in the lower-48 a Prius, Jeb!’s support as measured in the polls is stuck in the mid-single-digits. Warning: You should be sitting down for this. “I don’t think Barack Obama has bad motives,” Jeb! said. “I just think he’s wrong on a lot of issues.”

Artificial sweeteners are typically used by people who want to enjoy the sweetness of sugar without the calories that come with it. However, new research suggests that a popular sugar substitute could be used to fight cancer as well as expanding waistlines.

Using artificial sweeteners may set the stage for diabetes in some people by hampering the way their bodies handle sugar, suggests a preliminary study done mostly in mice. The authors said they are not recommending any changes in how people use artificial sweeteners based on their study, which included some human experiments. The researchers and outside experts said more study is needed, while industry groups called the research limited and said other evidence shows sweeteners are safe and useful for weight control. The study from researchers in Israel was released Wednesday by the journal Nature. The work suggests the sweeteners...

Diet sodas and other artificially sweetened products don't help with weight loss, according to a new study from Purdue University. According to Susan E. Swithers, a professor of psychological sciences and a behavioral neuro scientist, it is important to know the effects of having too much artificial sweetener in the diet. She added that consuming too much food containing "no-calorie sweeteners" have been known to be associated with increased risk of heart problems and weight gain.About 30 percent of all adults in the U.S. consume artificial sweeteners. Even though, diet sodas have been considered healthy food by many, studies show...

EPA has removed saccharin, a common artificial sweetener, and its salts from the agency’s list of hazardous substances. Saccharin is no longer considered a potential hazard to human health. Saccharin is a white crystalline powder that is found in diet soft drinks, chewing gum, and juice. Saccharin was labeled a potentially cancer-causing substance in the 1980s. In the late 1990s, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) re-evaluated the available scientific information on saccharin and its salts and concluded that it is not a potential human carcinogen. Because the scientific basis for remaining...

Sugar Substitutes: Healthy or Deadly? "Why do things taste so good? I'm telling you why, NutraSweet is why…" So went the song in a 1990 television advertisement. The video backed it up with images of family fun, male bonding, and cute kids - all consuming or presumably on the verge of drinking a diet soda. Sweeteners like aspartame would usher in an era of thin and happy. Barry Sears, the biochemist who came up with the Zone diet, says it's not that simple. "We now know data from Harvard Medical School in children who consume diet sodas gain weight," Sears...

USING an artificial, no-calorie sweetener rather than sugar may make it tougher, not easier, to lose weight, US researchers said today. Scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied rats that were fed food with the artificial sweetener saccharin and rats fed food with glucose, a natural sugar. In comparison to rats given yogurt sweetened with glucose, those that ate yogurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories and put on more weight and body fat. The researchers said sweet foods may prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, but when...

A U.S. consumer group called for an urgent Food and Drug Administration review of the safety of aspartame on Monday, but the FDA said there was no immediate need to do so despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.  Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame -- widely used in soft drinks -- might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.   "This is the second study by the same lab showing that aspartame causes cancer in rats," Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson said in a telephone...