Has anyone else had issues with the new low calorie sweeteners?
Last year I went through a phase of strange fatigue. I constantly felt sick. Like I was physically, not emotionally, depressed. But also slightly brain fogged. Eventually this cleared up and I assumed it had resolved itself for good so I did not investigate it further.
Half a year later and I felt the way again. I’d just gotten an order of magic spoon cereal (which is sweetened by allulose, a sugar-like molecule that has a fraction of the calories but tastes almost identical). I have a sweet tooth so I felt eating the cereal was something of a life hack. Infinite sweetness without any downsides!
I realized that before when I felt off I’d also gotten a delivery of magic spoon. I assumed the correlation was meaningful and stopped eating it and felt better.
Recently I’ve been drinking these stevia and monk fruit sweetened yogurt drinks. They seem to be making me feel the same way, so I guess I need to stop having those as well. It’s kind of a shame because I don’t think they even need to be so sweet - and I’d happily accept some added sugar or a sweet fruit puree mixed in.
Am I crazy or is this a common occurrence?
There's some evidence that sweet tasting foods cause a release of insulin in anticipation of digestible carbohydrates.
The insulin release sends sugars into cells and out of the bloodstream. If your blood sugar is on the low side to start with, it's possible that eating low-sugar sweet foods is actually making you more hypoglycemic. It's a good idea to talk to your doctor if you've got the generally run-down feeling or intermittent episodes of shakiness and fatigue that suggest marginal hypoglycemia, because it can be a precursor to diabetes.
Likewise, you might think about your overall diet and increase your consumption of lower glycemic index foods and fiber. Exercise can help with blood sugar control by making muscles more sensitive to insulin release, leading to less insulin secretion and pancreatic stress from sugar/sweet intake.
Edit: If you want a deep dive on sweeteners, here's a good open-access research summary: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.598340/full
Also, don't eat erythritol-sweetened foods. Erythritol is a common sugar substitute in athletic protein supplement powders and bars in the U.S., and it's a PITA to avoid it for the vegan ones.
I don’t know if the research reflects this, but I have heard that the insulin spike combined with a lack of calories actually increases hunger because your body is expecting to take in more calories than it is getting. This makes zero-calorie sweeteners something of a trap because you will have more cravings for sweet things. Anecdotally, having cut them out of my diet has really helped to tamp down on my sweet tooth.
My personal view of artificial sweeteners is to treat them like sugar: avoid them except for special treats. I have found that after adapting to a non-sweetened lifestyle I actually find a lot more food palatable and enjoy eating “boring” foods a lot more. Most of the vegetables we eat are actually pretty sweet but when everything else we eat is sweet then it’s hard to taste it and it ends up tasting bitter instead.
But this isn’t advice I generally give out to people because it’s an extremely big ask. I think everyone knows that we should not eat too much sugar, but the average person has something like an addiction and getting to a point where you can say no to sweet things can be very difficult. Personally, cutting out sugar and sweeteners might have been the hardest part of switching to a whole food plant based diet for me; it took years to get rid of the constant sugar cravings. I still crave sweet things of course - that’s human nature - but a lot of things I used to eat and drink are way too sweet for me now.
Years ago I spent some time on keto. Controversial, I know, but it worked for me and I lost 80 pounds as a result.
Anyway, the reason I brought it up is that that time with practically no sugar made me realize just how sweet things are. Afterward many fruits and even some vegetables, such as carrots, felt so sweet that it felt like eating a dessert.
Same exact story here! Carrots and onions were SO different. I was blown away by how my tastes changed and how sugar-sensitive I became.
I used to buy these zero-sugar chocolates that were like, the keto treat to end all treats. I adored them. They were so sweet, so rich, so decadent.
After I stopped keto and my tastes recalibrated to “normal,” I tasted one of them.
It was like eating mud.
Also, this might be an overshare, but another keto surprise was that I had vivid dreams about carby foods (like cake and croissants) that were so intense and desire-filled that they were borderline erotic.
I do exercise very frequently. And eat plenty of fruits and vegetables daily.
I was just looking for a good vegan protein powder. The one I bought recently (which I dislike the taste of - too sweet! - so I don’t have it much) has all sorts of artificial sweeteners. I’d rather they just add sugar! I can burn it off with cardio. Or maybe focus on a more savory flavor profile.
This has been my hypothesis. Also, allulose does have some caloric value as it’s a natural sugar, just hard to process so you don’t get the full calories. I could see that hitting your bloodstream and triggering an outsized insulin response.
It's interesting to read all the responses here since I have almost the exact opposite problem, so I guess I will go against the grain a bit here. Consuming "real" sugar makes me very jittery, more anxious, and greatly increases the odds of me having a panic attack. Similar to caffeine (which I can't have at all!), sugar has always done that to me, albeit to a slightly lesser degree than caffeine. But ever since cutting out sugar pretty much entirely from my diet, and switching to foods/drinks that use sugar alcohols (erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol, etc), "natural" alternatives (stevia, monkfruit, etc), and even totally artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, etc) instead of sugar I have felt significantly better.
p.s. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that anyone here is misattributing their negative reactions to those sweeteners or anything like that, but it's interesting to see how differently everyone's bodies respond to stuff like this. For me, it's regular sugar that makes me feel genuinely terrible, and those alternative sweeteners have been kind of a miracle, both in terms of helping speed up my weight loss and reducing my overall jitteriness/anxiety/panic attacks.
I'm also fine with artificial sweeteners, though mostly I stick to Coke Zero over other diet soda options (Pepsi Zero and Diet Coke are the backups) I don't get the jitteriness with sugar either, personally.
All of which to cosign it's very individual what hits folks and how your body reacts to it.
For a while, I bought and drank a lot of coke zero (couple/several times a week) thinking the same thing, and experienced more headaches and .... blehness? I can't correlate symptoms because it was not a daily / no immediate effects, but feels safe to say if there are no free lunches, there are no free calories. Wouldn't surprise me if they turn out to give us cancer or something.
Anyway, the most obvious negative impact is training my taste buds to expect and tolerate more sugary taste in every piece of food, right? I'm happy to report these days, most north american baked goods are too sweet for me, and I can tolerate unsweetened plant milks with only mild disappointment.
To piggy back on Coke Zero. I have a soda problem, and have converted to Diet or Zero sodas.
I can have a diet Dr Pepper, Diet A&W, or Sprite Zero with no issues.
If I drink even a 3rd of a Coke Zero, within 30 minutes of even drinking 8 ounces I get a splitting headache and pain in my teeth. Every time.
Does not happen with regular soda or those other diet Sodas I mentioned above. Only with Coke Zero.
I am pre-diabetic and I am working on that. But Coke Zero illicits a different response than the others, which is scary. I avoid at all cost.
Caffeine in the Coke and Dr. Pepper but not the A&W and 7up. I would have guessed that to be the cause, maybe still something there to consider.
It may be the acesulfame potassium (ace-K). I have the same lethargy/headache issue with Coke Zero and Dr. Pepper Zero – they have aspartame like their Diet variants, but the addition of ace-K is what makes them taste much closer to the sugary originals. It's a shame, because I find the Diet versions to be disgusting in comparison, especially the bottled versions (which taste different than the cans for some reason, perhaps due to plastic leeching).
You are right. I was curious and asked my doctor, and he wasn’t sure. Other than saying it could have more caffeine than other diet soda. So I asked AI, and it turns out Coke Zero has a higher acidity level with MORE artificial sweetener than the others I mentioned. So, according to the AI, I am likely responding to the sweetener and acidity.
It is interesting to learn that soda has different acidity levels. I believe I have heard that before about Coca Cola.
I appreciate your response, thanks.
It may depend, Pepsi, Coke, Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke, Pepsi Zero/Max are all more acidic than Coke Zero.
Of the ones you mentioned, root beer is the most "basic" at like 4.5 but I'm not sure the distance between Coke Zero and DDP (.24) or between Coke Zero and Sprite Zero (.18) is significant enough to have that level of impact.
It could certainly be the types of sweetener or quantity, but your teeth hurting is a pretty extreme response.
I would not recommend trusting AI on matters of health.
I agree with you on AI. But the AI would have access to levels of Sweetener or acidity that a doctor may not. While I do not know what causes the pain in my teeth, I know not to drink Coke Zero.
As I said, it must be something, as none of the other listed diet sodas bother me. I don’t drink “a lot” to begin with. Maybe 3 diet sodas a week total. Usually at lunch with food. Anyway, I appreciate the feedback!
Is your diet significantly lower in carbs than before? Reducing carbs is initially terrible in my experience, you basically get sapped of energy. My layman's understanding is because carbs are the easiest energy source for people. I think eventually you adapt (or you're truly low, and you need more carbs).
Other thought is that zero-calorie sweeteners are usually for certain types of lifestyles, so even if the sweetener is okay, you might be reacting to something else. For example, I've noticed tapioca fiber is in a lot of "zero-sugar" foods, because if you up the fiber enough you can say it's a "keto" or low net carb food.
There's strong evidence that many non and low caloric sweeteners negatively impact the microbiome. At this point it looks like potentially all of them do and it's just a question of degree as each new study adds more to the list.
No idea if that's part of the reason for what you're experiencing but of course microbiome changes can have all sorts of systemic effects, mood and energy included.
I think stevia, at least, is fine? I haven’t read through this paper, but it seems like if there was a large effect, they would’ve seen it.
I couldn’t find any meta-analyses covering this yet, though, so maybe there’s an effect that’s buried in the data? I actually like stevia, so I hope it’s OK.
I've read numerous studies that link stevia glycosides to microbiome changes, however the impact is small, at least from what I've read. I'm sure there are studies I haven't seen.
It's still an open question whether stevia glycosides cause insulin resistance (as many other non-nutritive sweeteners do) and if so, how extreme an effect it is.
On the other side, stevia might increase gut biome diversity and promote the growth of certain beneficial bacteria.
My take on stevia is that it's one of the better non-nutritive sweetener options but more research is needed. I use it, but sparingly. It may be beneficial to include pre-biotic fiber and natural sources of sugar when using it. Fruit checks both those boxes.
I have no medical background and am most certainly not a docter. But a quick google search tells me that it is possible to be alergic to the substances you mention.
Could be something to look into.
I try to avoid artificial sweeteners as much as possible because they spike my blood sugar as much as regular sugar, so why bother? But I also can't have most of the Zero or Diet products because they contain Aspartame (or Phenylalanine, it's chemical name) and that gives me migraines, and always has.
I used to be a big gum chewer for a very tight jaw and could never understand why I also always had migraines, and had to stop chewing gum when I got my wisdom teeth taken out. No migraines during that time and assumed it was the gum, but tested again, and got a migraine, so I basically stopped chewing, a bit later, drank a diet soda because zero sugar! Yay! But instantly got a migraine again and looked at the common ingredients.
My current company doesn't purchase regular sodas, only diet/zero products, and other things that are naturally sugar-free like seltzer or tea/coffee. I don't have a problem with that, since it's easy to avoid, and I like seltzer, but if I want a dr. pepper, I have to bring it in myself.
Other artificial sweeteners bother me and give my stomach a turn, and often I spend more time in the bathroom than not, so another reason to avoid for me.
I don't think it's going to solve your problem altogether, but one thing that I've come to really like is fruit-flavoured carbonated water. These are multiple brands of these. The key here is that they usually contain only two ingredients: carbonated water and natural fruit flavour. No sugar, no sweeteners, zero calories. Yet, they taste good (IMO). You kind of do a mental double take, because your brain registers it ast semi-sweet, yet there's no sweetener, whether natural or artificial.
I find that these satisfy my craving for carbonation and a sweet drink.
Oh yeah I have a ton of Spindrift. My favorite flavor is blood orange tangerine.
Sort of the same for me. I need to check if things have any sort of artificial sweetener because they almost always given me a sickening feeling. Its at the point where some suger free sodas or candies trigger a gag reflex. There's a similar situation for energy and other heavy caffeine drinks. Body just doesn't want any of it but can't tell if that's just a taste issue.
On the other hand, I was much worse with my sugar intake to the point that it was starting to cause dental and behavioral issues. Part of handling it was cutting out sugar and sweeteners completely for a few months and around a week in I felt fairly ill for a few days. Fatigue, lethargic and overall not doing so well. But the doctor said it was a normal withdrawal response so I pushed through and it improved quickly. After recalibrating I'd like to think I'm a better about it. Soda is a special treat and chocolate bars last days instead of minutes.
But patience_limited is probably right and you should check in with a GP or a endochronologist if you can. Couldn't hurt to get checked out and find if it's a normal reaction or if there are other things at work.
I'm trying to cut out sugars so no more sugar in coffee or tea. I have started drinking an energy drink at work occasionally over the last year or so (always full sugar) and I figured I would cut them out entirely as well. I probably enjoy a caffeine too much so having energy drinks is probably creating an addiction. Last night I caved and got a non-sugar energy drink (it should be better right?). I regret that decision; I didn't enjoy the caffeine hit, it didn't taste good (I hate artificial sweeteners), and now (a few hours later) my gut doesnt feel great.
I've never had a reaction like you describe but I definitely have had negative gut reactions before if I have too much sweetener.
I never bothered to look at the ingredients, but I had an issue with G Fuel. It seemed like it would be a good replacement for energy drinks, and at the time I was drinking them a lot on days I had to get up super early for work. I can't stand the taste of coffee so I'm kinda SOL on caffeine in the morning if I need it. Energy drinks seem to be the only thing that works.
So I tried G Fuel thinking it was a healthier option and one I could switch to. And it was fine for a little bit. And then one week I had to be up early every day all week. So every morning I mixed the powder into a bottle of water and brought it to work with me.
By Wednesday I started feeling like such shit. Bad headaches, nauseous, lethargic. Not good for work, much less my well being. I was maybe halfway through my bottle that day and it dawned on me that might be the cause. I stopped drinking it. Didn't have it the rest of the week. Ironically went back to energy drinks to get me through the week.
Thursday I felt a lot better, Friday I was back to normal.
Similarly I noticed when I try to have a Coke Zero nowadays, I usually get a headache from it, that I don't from regular Coke.
So...idk, I want to be healthier but the healthy options make you worse so...no idea