Stevia Side Effects

Stevia Side Effects

This website’s aim is to give you information about the plant Stevia Rebaudiana and its sweetening power as well as its side effects (both positive and negative). It’s purposely kept small to make it easy for you to get a concise overview.

What is Stevia?

Stevia (rebaudiana) is a plant native to South and Central America that belongs to the sunflower family (Asteraceae). Altogether there are 240 species of the Stevia plant in the world. It has been used as an alternative to sugar by the population of Paraguay and Brazil for about 500 years because the extract of the plant is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar.

In other words, you only need one or two leaves of it, to sweeten one cup of strong coffee or tea.

What Are the Negative Side Effects of Stevia?

There are no really confirmed negative Stevia side effects for humans. However, Stevia was forbidden as a food additive in the European Union and some other countries, because many people said that there were still not enough confirmed studies confirming that Stevia was not harmful in any way. Just shortly (November 2011) The European Union approved Stevia to be used in food and drinks. Read more: Stevia Eu Approval

In addition the lack of affirmative evidence, there have actually been several experiments with rats and similar animals that showed a toxic reaction to Stevia, particularly in male rats. The results weren’t dramatic, but they were certainly strong enough to wake some concerns. Now, that being said, these studies have been highly criticized on procedural grounds. AKA: The way the data was handled was misleading;

In these studies the dose of Steviol – The substance in Stevia that people worry about- was WAY too high. They gave the rats an amount of concentrated Steviol equal to if a human ate half of his weight in Stevia leafs every day. With that much of a chemical, even sugar would be dangerous! If you calculate the daily consumption of Stevia to replace the average daily sugar consumption, a human would eat 4 gram of Stevia leafs – Not nearly half the weight of a human body.

Stevia has been a healing plant and a sweetener for the Indigo people for hundreds of years and has been used in Japan and Brazil to sweeten lolly pop candies, coke drinks and many other foods for about 30 years so far. The USA allows “Reb A” (a sweetener made of stevia) since 2008 as food additive.

So after all these studies, no REAL negative Stevia side effects have been seen yet. This is an additional sign that there are just no bad effects from Stevia on humans. Of course, optimally there would be more studies in progress, but the problem is, as always, the money.

Who’s going to pay for these experiments?

The sugar industry, which could be a possible sponsor, is afraid of Stevia killing their business, so of course they’re not funding it. Maybe if they could see the potential of the ‘sweet leaf’ (the nickname Stevia has earned for itself), someone would take action.

Additionally the World Health Organistation (WHO) published a report in 2006 which says: ”Stevioside and Rebaudioside A are not genotoxic in vitro or in vivo and that the genotoxicity of Steviol and some of its oxidative derivatives in vitro is not expressed in vivo.” In 2008 the Food and Drug Administration of the USA (FDA) classified Truvia (by Coca-Cola) and PureVia (by PepsiCO) – both substances based on Stevia – to GRAS, Generally Recognized as Safe.

Benefits of Stevia

Stevia has been recognized for hundreds of years by tribes in South America. In this time it has not only been used as sweetener but as a healing plant and healthy food additive as well.

Unlike artificial sweeteners like aspartame, Stevia is said to have no bad effects on the insulin balancing process of the human body. Instead, as the report of the WHO mentioned above says it has a negligible effect on blood glucose and could even enhance glucose tolerance. That makes it not only a good natural sweetener for diabetics, but for everyone who wants a healthy blood sugar.

Sugar is well known to be extremely calorie intensive, however, Stevia contains no calories. Yet Stevia is still 300 times sweeter AND it’s good for your teeth and – Stevia is effective against cavities and dental plaque. Other experiments and researches found some positive Stevia side effects on obesity and high blood pressure.

All this makes the ‘sweet leaf’ a natural and healthy alternative to sugar and synthetically produced sweeteners. You can use it for cooking and baking as it’s highly heat-resistant and perfectly water soluble, making it a perfect sugar substitute.

Story of Stevia

As mentioned before, Stevia has been used by the native South Americans for centuries. In 1887 Moises Giacomo Bertoni, a swiss botanist, discovered the plant for the western world, and named it „Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni“.

Despite the breakthrough that Stevia offered, and the clear benefits it offered the South American people, it still took the scientific world about 40 years from discovery to investigate further with studies about the plant to find possible Stevia side effects. The first studies about Stevia were made by the two french chemists Pomeret and Lavieille in 1931. They’re goal was to isolate the glycosides (altogether eight of them) which give Stevia its sweetness and named these compounds stevioside and rebaudioside. They also made some experiments with rabbits, guinea pigs, and chickens, which were the initial tests for toxicity and stated that Stevia isn’t toxic for them.

As far as actual cultivation, experiments in Japan were made in 1954 to grow the Sweet Leaf. In the 1970′s they extended the cultivation and started to use it as an sugar substitute industrially. In Europe, the approval of Stevia as consumable or as food supplement was delayed because of studies in the 80′s which had affirmed that the metabolically activated Steviol does in fact act as a mutagen. Today, however, it seems that the Stevia plant will be approved as consumable in the European Union soon, as it is already partially approved in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the Swiss and France.

In the US the Coca-Cola Company already has patented 24 recipes for Cola-Light based upon Stevia in 2007. One of the issues that Stevia faces in the US is that the sugar industry doesn’t want Stevia to become popular, because they are frightened of revenue losses. We had already mentioned this before, but it is a real problem hampering the research and development of Stevia.

If you’re interested, you can buy Stevia powder, Stevia extracts or Stevia as tea. You’re free to use and enjoy the wonderful Sweet Leaf inside of your home, but always decide for yourself if you believe in no negative Stevia side effects. If you’re not sure, always talk to your doctor first.

It seems that Stevia will be the sweetener of the future as it really is much more effective than sugar for sweetening, and it’s much healthier than most other artificial sweeteners (Such as sucralose or aspartame). If you’ve got a sweet tooth but don’t want it to affect your weight, start substituting Stevia for sugar inside of your own home!