Purpose
Artificial sweeteners are used in food products for
several reasons: to lower the calorie content of soda
pop and other sweet treats as part of weight reduction
and weight maintenance diets; to assist patients with
diabetes in controlling blood sugar levels more effec-
tively; and to lower the risk of tooth decay. They are
also added as excipients (inert substances used to
make drugs easier to take in tablet or liquid form) to
some prescription medications to disguise unpleasant
tastes because they do not react with the active drug
ingredients as natural sugars sometimes do. Sorbitol
and mannitol are commonly added to toothpaste,
mouthwash, breath mints, cough drops, cough syrups,
sugarless gum, over-the-counter liquid antacids, and
similar personal oral care products to add bulk to the
product’s texture as well as minimize the risk of tooth
decay.
In addition to adding a sweet flavor, artificial
sweeteners are also used in the manufacture of baked
goods, beverages, syrups, and other food products to
improve texture, add bulk, retard spoilage, or as part
of a fermentation process. The polyols in particular
are used to retard spoilage because they do not sup-
port the growth of mold or bacteria to the same extent
as natural sugars.
Description
Nutritive sweetenersNatural sugars. Natural sugars, which are also called
primary sweeteners, include sucrose, a compound of
glucose and fructose commonly used in crystalline
form as table sugar; and fructose, which is a simple
sugar found in sucrose and fruit, and is added to
foods and beverages in combination with sucrose as
high-fructose corn syrup or HFCS. These sweeteners
provide about 4 calories per gram. Fructose is
sweeter than sucrose; thus smaller amounts of it can
be used to sweeten foods and drinks, which allows
for some reduction in calories.
Polyols. Polyols provide between 1.6 calories per
gram (mannitol) and 3 calories per gram (hydrogen-
ated starch hydrolysates). They are absorbed very
slowly and incompletely during digestion, which is
why they can be beneficial to patients with diabetes
who want to avoid sudden or sharp increases in
blood sugar levels.
Nonnutritive sweeteners approved by the FDA
There are five nonnutritive sweeteners approved
by the FDA for use in the United States as of 2007:
Acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K). Acesulfame
potassium is a high-intensity nonnutritive sweetener
that is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose; 95% of
it is excreted from the body unchanged. It was dis-
covered by a German company, Hoechst AG, in 1967.
It was first approved by the FDA for use in non-
alcoholic beverages in 1998 and for general use in- In addition to its usefulness in reducing the
calorie content of foods, in diabetic diets, and in
not promoting tooth decay, acesulfame potassium
remains stable at the high temperatures used for
cooking and baking, has a long shelf life, does not
leave any bitter aftertaste, and combines well with
other sweeteners. It is sold under the brand names
ACK, Sunett, Sweet & Safe, and Sweet One.
Aspartame. Aspartame, which is also about 200
times sweeter than sugar, was discovered in 1965 by
a researcher at Searle Laboratories working on anti-
ulcer medications. It is unusual among nonnutritive
sweeteners in that it is completely broken down dur-
ing digestion into its basic components—the amino
acids aspartic acid and phenylalanine plus a small
amount of methanol. Aspartame was approved by
the FDA for tabletop use in 1981 and for use in
carbonated beverages in 1983. As of the early
2000s, the United States uses 75% of the aspartame
produced in the world, 70% of this amount con-
sumed in diet beverages. Aspartame is the nonnutri-
tive sweetener that has received the greatest amount
of negative attention in the mass media because of a
rumor that it caused Gulf War syndrome (GWS) in
veterans of the Persian Gulf conflict of 1991, and
because of a study done in Europe in 2005 that linked
aspartame to two types of cancer (leukemia and
lymphomas) in female laboratory rats. In response
to the 2005 European study, the National Cancer
Institute (NCI) conducted a study of half a million
people in the United States in 2006 and found no
connection between cancer rates and aspartame con-
sumption. The details of this study can be found in a
fact sheet available on the NCI website. Another
study conducted by the National Toxicology Pro-
gram (NTP) of the National Institute of Environ-
mental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of aspartame as a
possible carcinogen found no evidence that the
sweetener causes cancer in humans. Aspartame is
sold under the brand names NutraSweet, Equal,
and Sugar Twin (blue box).
Neotame. Neotame is similar chemically to aspartame
but is between 7000 and 13,000 times sweeter than
sugar. In July 2002, neotame was approved as a gen-
eral-purpose sweetener by the FDA. Neotame is par-
tially absorbed in the small intestine, the remainder
Artificial sweeteners