Splenda Side Effects
What is Splenda ?
Splenda is the tradename of a sweetener which is based on the artificial substance sucralose. It mainly consists of glucose and maltodextrin as a base, with a small amount of sucralose for the sweetening effect. Lately it caused much of a sensation because of concerns about negative Splenda side effects and if you search the internet you will find many raving voices which will warn you about dangers of it.
In 1975 the two chemists Leslie Hough and his student Shashikant Phadnis of the Queen Elizabeth University in London started to experiment with sugar and chlorine to develop an insecticide. Hough told his student Phadnis to test a compound they had created, but it is said thataccidentally he understood that he should taste it. This way, they found out about the extreme sweetening powers of their product, Sucralose. It was 600 times sweeter than normal sugar. Over the next years they worked together with the sugar company Tate & Lyle to develop the final structure of the sweetener and the salable sugar substitute Splenda. In 1991 it was first approved for consumption in Canada, and in 1998 in the United States. Since then it overtook about 60% of the market of artificial sweeteners.
What could be possible benefits of Sucralose and Splenda ?
Beside all the rumors and discussions about Splenda side effects there is also a clearly positive part of Splenda being an artificial sweetener.
First of all, Sucralose doesn’t influence the blood sugar level. This means Splenda is a possibility for diabetics to eat sweet foods or drinks like coke without worrying about their blood sugar and the need to inject themselves insulin.
There is another advantage of Splenda to normal sugar. A side effect of sugar is -as we all know- the high calories it contains. For example if you drink normal coke, you don’t really recognize all the calories, but because of the high sugar level, the massive consume of coke is a real pleasure if you like to get fat. Splenda or Sucralose has almost no calories but sweetens the food in the same amount or higher.
Negative Splenda Side Effects
One of the benefits of Splenda brings also a negative side effect. When you consume an artificial sweetener, your body thinks you’re eating sugar and it produces insulin to absorb the sugar. The problem is that -as already said- Splenda doesn’t influence the blood sugar level, so there is no sugar to be absorbed and you got to much insulin in your blood, and this will raise your appetite (on sugar). But that’s a general problem of artificial sweeteners.
Beside of that, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) approved Splenda in 1998 and as already said it has been allowed in Canada since 1991. That is almost twenty years after its discovery. Until this approval, there have been many studies about Splenda to ensure that it is safe for consumption. After all these studies the FDA said, sucralose definitely doesn’t harm the human body in any way as long as the amount of 15 mg/kg(of the body weight)/day is not exceeded. Later on they corrected this number to 9 mg/kg/day. So it seems a bit strange that there are so much rumors about it now. Until today there have been about 110 different studies about the topic, but the FDA rated the results of them as not concerning enough to restrict the usage of Splenda again.
Many of these studies showed negative Splenda side effects but were not relevant because they worked with an totally unrealistic amount of sucralose. Scientists found harmful effects on the thymus after feeding rats with 3000 mg/kg/day of sucralose for almost a month. That would have been 17200 packets of Splenda a day for a normal weighted man.
Another of the studies which claimed that the sweetener is harmful, was made by the Duke University. They tested a consumption of 1 – 11 mg/kg/day (which is below the value set by the FDA) over twelve weeks. It caused different negative effects: A detracting effect on the microflora of the digestive system; an increased fecal pH; and the reduction of the bioavailability of nutrients and orally administered drugs. (source:Sucralose on Wikipedia). These effects were only reported in test animals, but could not be confirmed in humans.
However people discuss about many other Splenda Side Effects like migraine, stomach pain and more. None of them were really confirmed by science, but the debates are probably just that raving because of the fact that Splenda was first meant to be an insecticide and that it’s artificial. People seem to just don’t like artificial stuff.
But still, after all these studies it can’t be said exactly whether Splenda is harmful or not, especially as long there are reports of people having problems with it. Everybody has to decide for himself if he wants to use products like that, you just shouldn’t go to crazy about it. If you are looking for a natural alternative to Splenda you should check out Stevia. Side effects of Stevia are discussed on our main page –> Stevia Side Effects.