The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised against the use of non-sugar sweeteners to control body weight or reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), a guideline published on its official websites this Monday According to.
The recommendation is based on the results of a systematic review of the available evidence, which suggested that “the use of non-sugar sweeteners does not provide any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. The review results also suggest that its long-term use may have potentially unwanted effects, such as an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and adult mortality.”
“Replacing free sugars with sweets does not seem to help control weight in the long term. People should consider other ways to reduce their intake of free sugars, such as eating foods with natural sugars, such as fruit, or eating foods and drinks without sugar,” says Francesco, WHO director of nutrition and food safety. Branca said. “Sugar-free sweeteners are not essential dietary factors and lack nutritional value. People should completely eliminate sweeteners from their diets from an early age to improve their health.”
The recommendation applies to all people, except those with pre-existing diabetes, and includes all synthetic and natural or modified non-nutritive sweeteners that are not classified as sugar and are found in manufactured foods and beverages. , or they are sold to consumers. For food and drink, specifies the guidelines of the United Nations Health Agency, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The most common non-nutritive sweeteners include acesulfame-K, aspartame, avantame, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia, and stevia derivatives.
The WHO clarifies that the recommendation does not apply to hygiene and personal care products that contain non-sugar sweeteners, such as toothpastes, skin creams and medicines, nor to low-calorie sugars and sugar alcohols (polyols), which contain sugar or There are sugar derivatives that contain calories and therefore are not considered unsweetened sweeteners.
Because the evidence-based link between non-sugar sweeteners and disease outcomes may be confounded by baseline characteristics of study participants and confounding patterns of use of these sweeteners, the recommendation is assessed as conditional, WHO for guideline development after procedures. This indicates that policy decisions based on this recommendation may require significant debate in specific national contexts, for example over the extent of consumption in different age groups, argues the WHO.
The WHO guideline on unsweetened sweeteners is part of a set of existing and future guidelines on healthy diets that aim to establish lifelong healthy eating habits, improve diet quality and reduce the risk of NCDs worldwide.
