Sucralose Health Effects

As many as 4,500 products contain the artificial sweetener sucralose, often seen under the brand name Splenda. Sucralose is derived from sugar through a chemical process. Although approved for wide use by the Food and Drug Administration, because millions of people consume sucralose regularly, some questions about its possible health effects still exist.

• Will stirring splenda in your coffee affect your health?

Features

• Sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar. Scientists create sucralose by changing the chemical makeup of sugar---substituting chlorine atoms for hydrogen-oxygen atoms on a sugar molecule. The body no longer recognizes the product as a carbohydrate and instead passes it through the body without registering the calories. In 1998, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved use of sucralose in 15 consumer products. In 1999, the FDA gave sucralose approval as a general purpose sweetener.

Function

• Unlike some other no-calorie sweeteners, heat does not affect the taste or structure of sucralose. You will find sucralose in products advertising themselves as "light," "sugar free," "low sugar" and diet. Many sodas, baked goods, ice creams, yogurts, puddings, canned fruits, syrups and candies contain sucralose. You can use Splenda in place of sugar in your own baked goods to decrease the calorie count.

Effects

• Reported symptoms from sucralose are primarily gastrointestinal in nature---diarrhea, gas, bloating. Some people find they are particularly sensitive to it and experience hives and rashes, wheezing and coughing, chest pains, anxiety and mood swings, depression, palpitations, anger and itchy eyes. Some controversy revolves around the presence of chlorine in sucralose. Chlorine is a poison and a known carcinogen. But the form of chlorine used in sucralose is chloride and is completely safe. In fact, you can find chloride in natural foods like lettuce and mushrooms---even in table salt.

Expert Insight

• The National Cancer Institute does not consider sucralose dangerous. In order to be approved by the FDA, hundreds of studies on the safety of sucralose were conducted over the course of 20 years and none found any notable health effects caused by the artificial sweetener. International experts have also reviewed the safety of sucralose and it is now approved in 60 countries.

Considerations

• Studies have identified the regular consumption of artificial sweeteners as a potential factor in weight gain and obesity. As reported in a 2008 edition of the journal, Behavioral Neuroscience, researchers at Purdue University studied rats who consumed either yogurt sweetened with a no-calorie sweetener or a yogurt sweetened with glucose syrup. The rats consuming the no-calorie sweetener ended up eating a greater amount of daily calories, accumulated more body fat and gained more weight than the rats who ate real sugar. The researchers suspect that artificial sweeteners somehow interfere with the body's ability to regulate food intake and ultimately leads to overeating and weight gain.