By Aude Lecrubier, Medscape, June 09, 2023.

A new guideline from the World Health Organization (WHO) on nonsugar sweeteners (NSSs) recommends not using them to control weight or reduce the risk for diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. These sweeteners include aspartame, acesulfame K, advantame, saccharine, sucralose, stevia, and stevia derivatives.

The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review that collected data from 283 studies in adults, children, pregnant women, and mixed populations. 

The findings suggest that use of NSSs does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. They also suggest that long-term use of NSSs may have potential undesirable effects.

To clarify, short-term NSS use results in a small reduction in body weight and body mass index in adults without significant effects on other measures of adiposity or cardiometabolic health, including fasting glucose, insulin, blood lipids, and blood pressure.

Conversely, on a long-term basis, results from prospective cohort studies suggest that higher NSS intake is associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and all-cause mortality in adults (very low to low certainty evidence). 

Regarding the risk for cancer, results from case-control studies suggest an association between saccharine intake and bladder cancer (very low certainty evidence), but significant associations for other types of cancer were not observed in case-control studies or meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.

Relatively fewer studies were found for children, and results were largely inconclusive.

Finally, results for pregnant women suggest that higher NSS intake is associated with increased risk for preterm birth (low certainty evidence) and possibly adiposity in offspring (very low certainty evidence).

Lea el artículo: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/993009