We all know that consuming excessive amounts of added sugar is unhealthy. A wide range of health problems, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, gout, and more, have long been associated with sugar-rich foods and drinks, such as soda, cakes, pastries, candies, syrups, and other sweets. Do sugar replacements, however, act as a countermeasure or worse than sugar? This article compares and evaluates the most recent research on sugar, artificial sweeteners, and other sugar replacements.

What are other sugar alternatives and artificial sweeteners?

There is now an astounding variety of sugar substitutes accessible, each with a unique flavor and risk profile, thanks to the expansion of the sugar substitute market throughout time. Artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, and other low-calorie sweeteners are the three primary types of sugar alternatives. The Food and Drug Administration considers all of the items on this list to be safe.

Artificial sweeteners

Lab-created artificial sweeteners have 200–20,000 times the sweetness of table sugar. Acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), advantame, aspartame, neotame, saccharin, and sucralose are the six sweeteners that have FDA approval. They have 0–2 calories per teaspoon as opposed to 16 calories per teaspoon of sugar, making them less caloric than sugar. The one exception is aspartame, which is usually used in modest amounts but has the same caloric content per gram as sugar.

Alcohols made with sugar

Erythritol, xylitol, maltitol, mannitol, and sorbitol are examples of sugar alcohols. They are naturally present in several foods, such as fruit and vegetables, and are 25%–100% sweeter than sugar. They also have fewer calories per gram—1.5–3 as opposed to 4 for sugar. Because sugar alcohols leave less of an aftertaste than artificial sweeteners, they have grown in popularity over time.

Other sweeteners low in calories

Steviol glycosides (stevia), monk fruit, D-allulose, D-tagatose, and isomaltulose are naturally occurring sweeteners whose sweetness varies according on the component. For instance, stevia can be up to 400 times sweeter than sugar, yet allulose is only 0.7 times sweeter than sugar. It also differs in terms of calories. Monk fruit and steviol glycosides have no calories, whereas allulose has 0.2–0.4 calories per gram, or around 10% of the calories in sugar.

What is the difference between sugar and sugar replacements and artificial sweeteners?

Calories

Artificial sweeteners and sugar replacements can be used in lesser amounts to get the same sweetness as sugar because they have fewer calories per gram. For this reason, a lot of items with artificial sweeteners and sugar alternatives have fewer calories than their counterparts with sugar. Because of this, research indicates that while too much sugar can lead to weight gain and obesity, substituting artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes in general can be beneficial for weight loss.

Taste

It’s generally agreed upon that ordinary sugar tastes better overall, while some sugar substitutes taste better than others. Allulose, erythritol, monk fruit, steviol glycosides, and allulose taste the closest to sugar among sugar replacements, but aspartame and other artificial sweeteners leave an aftertaste that many find bitter and metallic.

Safety and Health

This is where the discussion between sugar and sugar replacements gets sticky (pun intended), particularly when fresh research like this one on the link between xylitol and heart disease enters the picture.

Weight loss: Reducing calories and weight may be facilitated by substituting sugar with sugar alternatives. Studies on the connection between sugar alcohols and controlling weight, however, are scarce. Contrary to popular opinion, sugar substitutes don’t seem to make you crave sweets, so they can be useful in the short term if you’re trying to lose weight.

Diabetes and blood sugar: Most sugar alternatives have little to no influence on blood glucose levels, in contrast to sugar. They do not, however, reduce your risk of developing diabetes. Large-scale research is beginning to provide evidence that eating sugar alternatives raises the risk of type 2 diabetes. While sugar replacements may not be as effective as sugar in preventing type 2 diabetes, they may still be helpful in controlling blood sugar levels.

Heart disease: An increasing amount of research indicates that, like sugar, sugar substitutes have a detrimental effect on the risk of heart disease and stroke. A few small intervention studies have corroborated similar findings, despite the fact that the majority of research on sugar replacements and heart disease has come from observational trials, which are unable to establish cause and effect. Currently, there is no evidence that sugar replacements or extra sugar are beneficial to heart health.

Microbiome and digestive health: One of the most well-known adverse effects of sugar replacements is digestive distress, which can range from bloating to diarrhea. When taken in excess, artificial sweeteners like sucralose and aspartame can make you feel sick to your stomach, and sugar alcohols can make some people experience symptoms of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Although research is ongoing, sugar replacements don’t seem to benefit your gastrointestinal systems. The microbiome, which is made up of microscopic organisms such as bacteria that reside in your gastrointestinal tract and affect your health, may be impacted by them.

Cancer risk: Previous studies using animal models have generally refuted the theory that significant amounts of sugar substitutes may raise the risk of cancer. More recent research finds no connection between the risk of cancer and sugar replacements. Sugar’s effect on obesity, a risk factor for many cancer types, has been a major element in the association between excessive sugar intake and cancer.