Any views on the safety of Splenda?

For those of us who are weight-challenged, artificial sweeteners can be a good thing in the right application. I drink Diet Coke at work, because I am of the late Baby-Boomer generation, and was practically weaned on sugary Coke and Pepsi, and have carried that taste into adulthood. So Joseph, I can see your viewpoint, but there is a generational difference at work. You're much like my Dad in that respect.

I have wondered why, since Aspartame breaks down with heat, so many prepackaged "diet" food items use it as a sweetener. And soft drinks sweetened with Aspartame will lose their sweetness over time, although that could be a result of the cartons sitting in a hot warehouse for days or weeks, effectively becoming cooked.

I have never been bothered by the sacharrine aftertaste, and routinely use it to sweeten iced tea when dining out, since it dissolves faster and more completely than Aspartame or Splenda, and doesn't have the empty calories as does sugar (which can only be thoroughly dissolved in iced tea if stirred in immediately after brewing, while the tea is still hot).

Splenda can make soft drinks too sweet for my taste, although the fruit-flavored Diet Rite sodas and Fresca taste pretty good to me (and don't have caffeine, which can give me heart palpitations if I have too much in a short period). I have used Splenda in cooking before, with mixed results, and I need to experiment with some different desserts before I'm sold on it.

I'm going to do a bit of searching and see if there are any studies on the subject. It's not clear to me though who would fund such a study. Bob

Bob, I have no way of verifying this particular claim. I found this on a natural food web site.

As of 2006, only six human trials have been published on Splenda (sucralose). Of these six trials, only two of the trials were completed and published before the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption. The two published trials had a grand total of 36 total human subjects.

36 people sure doesn't sound like many, but wait, it gets worse, only 23 total were actually given sucralose for testing and here is the real killer:

The longest trial at this time had lasted only four days and looked at sucralose in relation to tooth decay, not human tolerance.

Perhaps you didn't read my earlier post:

Sucralose (Splenda)

One of the newest artificial sweeteners. Discovered in 1976 and approved by the FDA in 1998. Sucralose is the only artificial sweetener made from sugar: three chlorine atoms are substituted for three hydoxyl groups on the sugar molecule, which yields a no-calories sweetener that is 600 times sweeter than sugar.

Sucralose underwent more than 100 studies over 20 years, demonstrating no safety risks related to cancer, genetic effects, reproduction and fertility, birth defects, immunology, the central nervous system or metabolism. [And 80 countries have approved it. Do you actually believe that 80 countries would approve it after just a four-day trial on only three dozen people?]

Sucralose has a taste profile very similar to sugar, with no aftertaste, yet does not promote tooth decay. It's not metabolized in the body, and it passes through the body virtually unchanged. Because it's not recognized by the body as a sugar or carbohydrate, sucralose has no effect on glucose levels in either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.

I suggest searching for Splenda on snopes.com and then reading the origins of some of the hysteria surrounding Splenda.

And just one of the references about Splenda on WebMD.com:

“After a critical review of the evidence presented in toxicological studies, we concluded that the research exonerated and confirmed the safety of sucralose. We find it to be the safest alternative to sugar out there,” says David Schardt, senior nutritionist at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer nutrition and food policy advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., and a long-time critic of other artificial sweeteners, such as acesulfame-K and aspartame.

Yet Internet sites dedicated to disputing and questioning sucralose safety abound, often citing small studies where rodents fed large doses of sucralose (over 450 times the amount an average person would get by substituting sucralose for all other sweeteners, including sugar) developed shrunken thymus glands, and enlarged livers and kidneys. However, these are the same studies the scientific community, the Food and Drug Administration and consumer advocacy groups considered before concluding in 1998 that the sweetener did not pose a public-health risk. Since that time, no new studies have contradicted those findings.

[

And 80 countries have approved it. Do you actually believe that 80 countries would approve it after just a four-day trial on only three dozen people?]

Only if those countries were among those that formed the "coalition" to wage war on Iraq.

Well, you have a point there....

I'm just revisiting this since claiming I jones for those diet drinks, and I'll add that no, I do NOT jones for the original..I don't like the "mouth feel" of the syrupy sweetness. If I'm really honest, I think maybe I like the fizz--because as I've made an effort to give up diet soft drinks, the thing I want most? Italian aqua fizzante. Pellegrino. I find myself so pretentious. But I cannot help it. I can GUZZLE that stuff (i think I could guzzle any of it...that's what I go for...)

Truth be told, I don't like a lot of tap water, although that's what I drink most...I get flavors from that that I just don't like...

b

An overview of the continuing discussion on whether artificial sweeteners are helpful for weight control.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17brod.html?_r=1&ref=science