The increasing frequency of obesity and related diseases such as diabetes and hypertension is an important healthcare issue. The use of artificial sweeteners has increased in recent decades, for the purpose of limiting excessive calorie intake (1). A large variety of nonnutritive sweeteners are available. Acesulfame potassium is one of these artificial sweeteners, and is used in many types of f...

Artificial sweeteners or intense sweeteners are sugar substitutes that are used as an alternative to table sugar. They are many times sweeter than natural sugar and as they contain no calories, they may be used to control weight and obesity. Extensive scientific research has demonstrated the safety of the six low-calorie sweeteners currently approved for use in foods in the U.S. and Europe (ste...

This article investigates the effects of commercially available artificial (aspartame, saccharin, sucralose) and natural sweeteners (brown sugar, white sugar, molasses) on the immune system. Human whole blood cultures were incubated with various sweeteners and stimulated in vitro with either phytohemagglutinin or endotoxin. Harvested supernatants were screened for cytotoxicity and cytokine rele...

Since their discovery, the safety of artificial sweeteners has been controversial. Artificial sweeteners provide the sweetness of sugar without the calories. As public health attention has turned to reversing the obesity epidemic in the United States, more individuals of all ages are choosing to use these products. These choices may be beneficial for those who cannot tolerate sugar in their die...

The heterodimer of Tas1R2 and Tas1R3 is a broadly acting sweet taste receptor, which mediates mammalian sweet taste toward natural and artificial sweeteners and sweet-tasting proteins. Perception of sweet taste is a species-selective physiological process. For instance, artificial sweeteners aspartame and neotame taste sweet to humans, apes, and Old World monkeys but not to New World monkeys an...

Glycation is a non-enzymatic reaction between the carbonyl groups of sugars and the amino groups of proteins, nucleic acids and lipids. This process results in the formation of early glycation products, which rearrange to form more stable advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Glycation has been linked to a number of diseases such as, Alzheimer’s, diabetes mellitus, cataract, Parkinson’s, phys...

BACKGROUND The influence of artificial sweeteners on metabolic diseases is controversial. Artificially sweetened beverages have been associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) but biases and reverse causation have been suspected to have influenced the observed association. In addition, it has been suggested that investigation into the relationship between the frequency and durat...

Artificial sweeteners have increasingly become an area of controversy in the world of food and nutrition. Consumers are oftenly barraged with a number of contradictory opinions and reports regarding the safety and efficacy of sweeteners. Artificial sweetener consumption may cause migraines or headache, skin eruptions, muscle dysfunction, depression, weight gain, liver and kidney effects, multip...