artificial sweetener

View more Food & Cooking videos

Substances which increase the sweetness of food. There are two main groups: bulk sweeteners and intense sweeteners.

Bulk sweeteners, such as hydrogenated glucose syrup and sorbitol, are used as flavour-enhancers in many processed foods; they have about the same calorific value as natural sugars. Sorbitol is frequently used as a sugar substitute in confectionery. It is used especially in confectionery for diabetics because it is slowly absorbed and therefore puts less strain on the pancreas than glucose and sucrose. It should be used with care, however, because it has a laxative side-effect with which some people find difficult to cope. European Community directives recommend bulk sweeteners should not be used in food intended for children under three years of age.

Intense sweeteners, such as aspartame and saccharin, have no calories so they are often used as part of weight reducing diets. They produce their sweet taste by triggering specific receptors on the tongue. Some people believe that intense sweeteners disturb blood glucose control, stimulate the appetite, and increase the likelihood of suffering hunger pangs when on a weight-loss diet; there is little scientific evidence for this belief.

New, chemically engineered products much sweeter than current products are being developed and awaiting full approval. Among these super sweeteners are sucralose, 600 times sweeter than sugar, and alitame which is 2000 times sweeter. See also aspartame; acesulfame-K; cyclamate; and saccharin.

This category of nonnutritive, high-intensity sugar substitutes includes aspartame, acesulfame-k and saccharin. Two sweeteners undergoing FDA approval at this writing are alitame and sucralose. Cyclamate lost its FDA approval in 1970. Numerous new sweeteners are in various stages of development or review. Most of these are from two groups: the fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and the L-sugars.

Artificial sweeteners may assist in weight management, prevention of dental caries, and control of blood glucose for diabetics. It has also been suggested that low-calorie sweeteners may stimulate the appetite, but the bulk of evidence does not support this hypothesis. Conclusive research demonstrates that artificial sweeteners have no effect on carbohydrate metabolism, short- or long-term blood glucose control, or insulin secretion, and they are thus an excellent sugar alternative for diabetics. There have been a number of health concerns related with these products, though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process for artificial sweeteners involves a comprehensive analysis of scientific data to satisfy safety requirements. All "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) sweeteners have undergone extensive safety testing and have been carefully reviewed by the FDA.

Five FDA-Approved (GRAS) Artificial Sweeteners
Acesulfame potassium (Acesulfame-K) was discovered in 1967 and approved for use in the United States in 1988. Its trade name is Sunette. Two hundred times sweeter than sucrose, this sweetener is stable when heated, making it suitable for cooking. However, when used in large amounts it has a bitter aftertaste. It is not broken down by the body, and it does not provide any calories. Over ninety scientific studies have been conducted by the FDA, and the World Health Organization's Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has also endorsed Acesulfame K's safety.

Aspartame was discovered in 1969 and approved for use in the United States in 1981. Its trade name is NutraSweet. Also two hundred times sweeter than sugar, aspartame is not suitable in applications that require high temperatures, as it loses its sweetness when heated. It contains four calories per gram, but, because of its intense sweetness, the amount of energy derived from it is negligible. It is synthesized from aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two essential amino acids. Persons with the rare hereditary metabolic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU), an inborn error of metabolism, must control their intake of phenylalanine from all sources, including aspartame, and therefore all U.S. products containing aspartame are labeled "This product contains phenylalanine." Because it is impossible to know if an unborn child has PKU, it is recommended that pregnant women not use aspartame. The FDA states that aspartame is the most thoroughly tested food additive ever submitted to the agency.

Neotame was discovered in 1990 and was approved for use in the United States in 2002. Eight thousand times sweeter than sugar, this analog of aspartame can be used in both cooking and baking applications. Although neotame is a derivative of aspartame, it is not metabolized to phenylalanine, and no special PKU labeling is required. The FDA reviewed more than 113 human and animal studies before ruling on neotame.

Saccharin was discovered in 1879 and approved for use in the United States in 1879. Its trade name is Sweet'n Low. Three hundred to five hundred times sweeter than table sugar, saccharin provides no energy, as it is not metabolized by human beings. It has a bitter and somewhat metallic aftertaste. The largest population study to date, involving nine thousand individuals, showed that saccharin does not increase the risk of cancer, and on December 15, 2000, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to remove the warning label that had been required on foods and beverages containing saccharin since 1977 (warning labels were required because of findings that saccharin caused bladder tumors in mice when they were given high doses of the sweetener). Saccharin is approved in more than one hundred countries around the world and has been reviewed and determined safe by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the World Health Organization and the Scientific Committee for Food of the European Union.

Sucralose was discovered in 1976 and approved for use in the United States in 1988. Its trade name is Splenda. Six hundred times sweeter than sugar, sucralose is not absorbed from the digestive tract, so it adds no calories to consumed food. It is made from rearranged sugar molecules that substitute three atoms of chlorine for three hydroxyl groups on the sugar molecule. Sucralose has been tested in more than one hundred studies.

Sugar Alcohols (GRAS)
Sugar alcohols are not technically artificial sweeteners. Examples include sorbitol, xylitol, lactitol, mannitol, isomalt, and maltitol, which are used to sweeten "sugar-free" foods such as candy, cookies, and chewing gum. The alcohols have fewer calories than sugar, do not promote tooth decay, and do not cause a sudden increase in blood glucose because the bloodstream does not easily absorb them. They may cause, however, effects similar to a laxative if consumed in excess. Products containing large amounts of sugar alcohols must be labeled with the warning: "Excess consumption may have a laxative effect."

Artificial Sweeteners Pending FDA Approval
Alitame is two thousand times sweeter than sugar. An FDA petition was filed in 1986. Like neotame, alitame is a derivative of aspartame. It is approved for use in a variety of food and beverage products in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia, and the People's Republic of China.

Cyclamate was discovered in 1937, banned in 1969, and a petition for approval was refiled in 1982. After being banned by the FDA in 1969, due to findings that high doses cause bladder tumors in mice, cyclamate has been approved for use in more than fifty countries. The sweetener is a derivative of cyclohexylsulfamic acid and is thirty times sweeter than sucrose. In May 2003, the European Union reduced the recommended average daily intake of this sweetener in soft drinks, juice, and milk-based drinks, based on evidence that the conversion rate of cyclamate in the body is higher than previously thought.

Stevioside (stevia) is obtained from the leaves of a South American shrub. Though it can impart a sweet taste to foods, it cannot be sold as a sweetener because the FDA considers it an unapproved food additive. Stevioside is a high-intensity low-calorie sweetener three hundred times sweeter than sucrose. It is approved in Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that the data is insufficient to label it as a sweetener.

Artificial sweeteners taste sweet like sugar without the added calories. They do not promote tooth decay, and they are an acceptable alternative for people with diabetes or those wishing to decrease their use of sucrose. Artificial sweeteners, and their metabolic by-products and components, are not considered harmful to human beings at the levels normally used. When used in the context of a healthful diet, artificial sweeteners are generally safe for consumption.

See also Generally recognized as safe; Inborn errors of metabolism; Phenylketonuria.

Bibliography
American Dietetic Association (1998). "Position of the American Dietetic Association: Use of Nutritive and Nonnutritive Sweeteners." Journal of the American Dietetic Association 98:580–587.
Drewnoski, A. (1995). "Intense Sweeteners and Control of Appetite." Nutrition Review 53:1–7.
Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (1993–2003). "Evaluation of Certain Food Additives and Contaminants." Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
Nabors, Lyn (2001). Alternative Sweeteners, 3rd edition. New York: Marcel Dekker.
Stegink, Lewis, and Filer, L. (1984). Aspartame: Physiology and Biochemistry. New York: Marcel Dekker.

KEY TERMS Acceptable daily intake level (ADI)—The level of a substance that a person can consume every day over a lifetime without risk. The ADIs for artificial sweeteners are very conservative measurements. Carcinogen—A substance or other agent that causes cancer. Some artificial sweeteners have been banned in the United States on the grounds that they may be carcinogens. Food additive—Defined by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C) of 1938 as “any substance, the intended use of which results directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of food.” Excipient—An inert substance, such as certain gums or starches, used to make drugs easier to take by allowing them to be formulated into tablets or liquids. Some artificial sweeteners are used as excipients. Fructose—A simple sugar that occurs naturally in sucrose and fruit. It can be added in combination with sucrose in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to sweeten foods because it is sweeter than sucrose. Large amounts of fructose can cause diarrhea in infants and young children. Generally recognized as safe (GRAS)—A phrase used bythefederal governmentto refer to exceptions to the FD&C Act of 1938 as modified by the Food Additives Amendment of 1958. Sweeteners that have a scientific consensus on their safety, based on either their use prior to 1958 or to well-known scientific information, may be given GRAS status. Gulf war syndrome (GWS)—A disorder characterized by a wide range of symptoms, including skin rashes, migraine headaches, chronic fatigue, arthritis, and muscle cramps, possibly related to military service in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. GWS was briefly attributed to the troops’ high consumption of beverages containing aspartame, but this explanation has been discredited. High-intensity sweetener—Another term for nonnutritive sweetener, used because these substances add sweetness to food with very little volume. Nonnutritive sweetener—Any sweetener that offers little or no energy value when added to food. Nutritive sweetener—Any sweetener that adds some energy value to food. Phenylketonuria (PKU)—A rare inherited metabolic disorder resulting in accumulation of phenylalanine, an amino acid, in the body. It can lead to mental retardation and seizures. People with PKU should not use products containing the artificial sweetener aspartame because it is broken down into phenylalanine (and other products) during digestion. Sucrose—The natural sweetener commonly used as table sugar; sucrose is a compound of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose. It is used as the standard for measuring the sweetening power of high-intensity artificial sweeteners.

    Description
    Precautions
    Interactions
    Parental concerns
    Resources

What are Artificial sweeteners?

Artificial sweeteners, which are also called sugar substitutes, alternative sweeteners, or non-sugar sweeteners, are substances used to replace sugar in foods and beverages. They can be divided into two large groups: nutritive sweeteners, which add some energy value (calories) to food; and nonnutritive sweeteners, which are also called high-intensity sweeteners because they are used in very small quantities as well as adding no energy value to food. Nutritive sweeteners include the natural sugars—sucrose (table sugar; a compound of glucose and fructose), fructose (found in fruit as well as table sugar), and galactose (milk sugar)—as well as the polyols, which are a group of carbohydrate compounds that are not sugars but provide about half the calories of the natural sugars. The polyols are sometimes called sugar replacers,

sugar-free sweeteners, sugar alcohols, or novel sugars. Polyols occur naturally in plants but can also be produced commercially. They include such compounds as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates.

Nonnutritive sweeteners are synthetic compounds that range between 160 and 13,000 times as sweet as sucrose, which is the standard for the measurement of sweetness. There are five nonnutritive sweeteners approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the United States as of 2007. They are saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium (or acesulfame-K), sucralose, and neotame. There are other nonnutritive sweeteners that have been approved for use elsewhere in the world by the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) of the European Commission, the Joint Expert Committee of Food Additions (JECFA) of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and the World Health Organization (WHO) but have not been approved by the FDA. These substances are alitame, cyclamate, neohesperidine dihydrochalcone, stevia, and thaumatin. All of these will be described in further detail below.

The FDA uses two categories to classify both nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners for regulatory purposes. Some are classified as food additives, which is a term that was introduced by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act of 1938. This legislation was passed by Congress in response to a mass poisoning tragedy that took the lives of over a hundred people in 1937. A company in Tennessee that manufactured an antibacterial drug known as sulfanilamide, which had been used safely in powdered or pill form to treat childhood infections, dissolved the sulfanilamide in diethylene glycol—related to the active ingredient in automobile antifreeze—in order to market it as a liquid medicine. Diethylene glycol is highly

toxic to human beings and household pets, causing painful death from kidney failure. In 1937 there was no requirement for medications to be tested for toxicity before being placed on the market. The FD&C Act of 1938 thus included a legal definition of a food additive “any substance, the intended use of which results directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of food”

The FDA asks the following questions in evaluating a proposed new sweetener as a food additive:

• How is the sweetener made?
• What are its properties when it is added to foods or beverages?
• How much of the sweetener will be digested or otherwise absorbed by the body?
• Are certain groups of people likely to be more susceptible than others to the additive?
• Does the sweetener have any known toxic effects, including hereditary disorders or cancer?

Other sweeteners are classified as generally regarded as safe or GRAS, and are not defined for legal purposes as food additives. The GRAS category was created in 1958 when the FD&C Act was modified by the passage of the Food Additives Amendment. A sweetener, whether nutritive or nonnutritive, can be given GRAS status on the basis of “experience based on common use in food” or a scientific consensus represented by published studies. Sorbitol and a few other polyols have GRAS status along with the natural sugars. Most artificial sweeteners, however, are considered food additives by the FDA.

What is the Purpose of Artificial sweeteners?

Artificial sweeteners are used in food products for several reasons: to lower the calorie content of soda pop and other sweet treats as part of weight reduction and weight maintenance diets; to assist patients with diabetes in controlling blood sugar levels more effectively; and to lower the risk of tooth decay. They are also added as excipients (inert substances used to make drugs easier to take in tablet or liquid form) to some prescription medications to disguise unpleasant tastes because they do not react with the active drug ingredients as natural sugars sometimes do. Sorbitol and mannitol are commonly added to toothpaste, mouthwash, breath mints, cough drops, cough syrups, sugarless gum, over-the-counter liquid antacids, and similar personal oral care products to add bulk to the product’s texture as well as minimize the risk of tooth decay.

In addition to adding a sweet flavor, artificial sweeteners are also used in the manufacture of baked goods, beverages, syrups, and other food products to improve texture, add bulk, retard spoilage, or as part of a fermentation process. The polyols in particular are used to retard spoilage because they do not support the growth of mold or bacteria to the same extent as natural sugars.

Artificial sweeteners

Sweetener	Times sweeter than sugar	Calories	Brand name(s)
aspartame	200	4 kcal/g	Nutrasweet and Equal
saccharin	200–700	0	Sweet’N Low, Twin,and Necta Sweet
acesulfame-K (potassium)	200	0	Sunett and Sweet One
neotame	7,000–13,000	0	Neotame
sucralose	600	0	Splenda

Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

---

Approved for use in the United States as of April 1, 1998, the artificial sweetener has a sweetening power of about 600 times that of sucrose.

---