The Bitter Truth of Sugar Substitutes

Artificial sweeteners seemed so innocuous, but recent research raises important health questions

What’s actually in this stuff, and is it safe? Photo by the author

We’ve been going through a lot of monk fruit in our house, in an effort to cut back on added sugar, which is decidedly bad for health and poured copiously into store-bought cereal and bread and almost any foodstuff in a box. My wife keeps asking, though: Are monk fruit and other sugar substitutes actually good for us?

Science has been slow to answer this question.

“Research on the health effects of artificial sweeteners is a mixed bag,” said Liz Weinandy, RDN, an instructor of practice in medical dietetics at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. “In recent years, there have been more concerns raised about their use as some have been associated with negative health effects. But there are numerous studies [that] show no negative effects.”

But after seeing the results of a new study suggesting monk fruit could end your life sooner than you’d consider the sweet spot, and digging into other research on disease risks linked to most popular sugar substitutes and doubts about whether they help with weight loss, I’ve soured a bit on artificial sweeteners in general.