"A new study reveals health concerns about the sugar substitute sucralose (aka Splenda) so alarming that researchers said people should stop eating it and the government should regulate it more."
Sucralose. Not a Sweet Story. - Atrial Fibrillati...
Sucralose. Not a Sweet Story.
Written by
mjames1
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
48 Replies
•
BobDVolunteer
Same with aspartame. The very devil's spawn and should never have been licensed.
Nice description Bob. 😁 Very apt.
“To get some context Schiffman compared the U.S. standard to that of Europe.
“She said, "Our work suggests that the trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in a single, daily sucralose-sweetened drink [in the U.S.] exceed" the threshold of toxicology that is part of the restrictions imposed by the European Food Safety Authority. “
So it seems that people in the US are being exposed to this compound at levels not permitted in EU countries.
Personally, I think it’s best to avoid artificial sweeteners if possible, bearing in mind that they are added to all sorts of medications, supplements and even ‘health’ foods.
The original study was carried out on human cell lines ie in test tubes in a lab, not on human subjects so it’s not possible to say what effects these substances are having on the whole body over time at the consumption level of those who regularly consume it, put it in their tea, drink diet drinks every day etc. It’s best to avoid these products and TBH drinking fizzy drinks habitually every day wasn’t a thing in this country (UK) when I was a kid so it’s not exactly beyond us to de-normalise habitual consumption.
Remember Tizer in clip top bottles from a lorry in the street?
I remember the lorries.
old aren't we?
Yes. I was explaining to my friend that we’re the ‘new old folk’ now, despite her belief that 60 is the new 16 or something.
Was that the same as the Corona lorries that came round and you could get cream soda and cherryade as well?
I've always blamed artificial sweeteners for causing my AF, if only I'd known that straight from when my AF started 18 years ago. I wont consume anything that contains them now.
Hi Jean. Just to make you feel better, I have avoided any sweeteners for decades as I'm a fully paid up conspiracy theorist ☺️ and quite a number of other foods and additives. I'm an avid reader of food lables! However, I still developed AF unfortunately. My latest bete noir is rapeseed oil as that's creeping into a huge number of foods. Not a good oil as they would have us believe.
I always use rapeseed oil, what do you use instead? I also avoid products containing Maltodextrin.
Hi Jean. I will have a read about Maltodextrin as I know nothing about it thanks. We use extra virgin olive oil, organic cold pressed coconut oil, hemp oil or very occasionally groundnut oil. Oh and I nearly forgot butter.🤗
What do you use to roast potatoes?
Duck fat.
very nice. Chicken fat too.
Olive oil or coconut. X
I thought olive oil wasn't meant to be heated too high, so not to use it to roast potatoes.
I read that Jean, then read that it's not true! What do we do when there's so much conflicting information. 🤔 So I decided to use my discernment and have cooked with it for a long time. From memory it said use extra virgin for high temperature cooking. It makes nice roast potatoes.😁 It did cross my mind that similar to butter, other commercial agendas were behind saying it wasn't good for general cooking. Probably to promote other cheaper to produce oils and make more profits. Big companies seldom push things that are healthy if it means less profit.
Your good up to 400 degrees, esp with xtra Virgin. Stir fry above 450 like high heat Wok cooking, best not to use Olive oil. Of course I found this out after using Olive oil in a wok for some time. 😄
Thank you Jim.
Lately been using an air fryer a lot and olive oil works just fine.
That's good to hear that olive oil works well for you.
Air fryers were the fashion here a little while back. My daughter got one and was singing it's praises, but it soon wore off and it's now tucked away in a cupboard forever.
I think you’re OK if you stick with cold pressed and preferably organic rapeseed oil. The problem is with refined oils used in processed foods like crisps and similar snacks, biscuits, cakes and takeaway outlets that heat and reheat the cooking oil and don’t change it for days. A lot of the scare stories are from the US and don’t necessarily apply to the UK but since we have lost the protections of EU food regulations we have to be wise to these lower standards creeping in. For example, there’s an additive in US white bread which is used to make polystyrene ceiling tiles but it makes the bread nice and fluffy, so no thanks to all of that.
Thank you, fortunately I always use Organic everything. It's why I'm so poor. Everyone is drinking bottles of wine - me I'm drinking coconut water which is almost as expensive.
Yes, it’s an expensive way of life for sure and it’s getting more and more expensive all the time. I suppose for many of us we have to prioritise our health over luxuries and optional extras.
You could well be right Jean . About thirty years ago my wife switched me from sugar to sweetners (aspartame) but after about three months she did some research and took me off them back to sugar. I had apparently become more agressive which she discovered was a side effect of the drug. It was also around that time that I first encountered the strange fluttering feeling that ten years later was diagnosed as AF.
By the way I always liked a little tea with my sugar but when four years ago I clicked one digit into pre diebetic I stopped all added sugar , lost a stone and became "normal" again within a year. BP also improved greatly.
Well done Bob, I'm afraid I still need half a teaspoon of sugar in my tea. I drink more water these days and also have herbal teas. I always start the day with a glass of water. As kids we always drank tap water, but didn't have it until we felt thirsty. I'm not a great believer in over consuming fluids.
I think many of us on here have come to know about the toxicity of artificial sweeteners for a long time and the damage they can do. I won’t touch anything knowingly with aspartame or sucrose in. I was taken aback a while ago with Gaviscon tablets. I always use the liquid at home but kept some tablets in my bag for when I was out. Don’t know why but happened to read the ingredients to find they had aspartame in them. They went straight in the bin. I guess I should have been more vigilant and not assume as it wasn’t in the liquid it wouldn’t be in the tablets.
Hi Frances. I noticed that too re Gaviscon. Sweetners pop up in a lot of medicines.
I was just reading this, and thinking of buying a bottle - then my other half noticed ‘Gavi-Natura’ in Waitrose. They just have a little sugar,
Then by a weird coincidence I got a call from the pharmacist at the health centre. She did a quick Med review, and I said that I didn’t like the fact that Fybogel has aspartame. I was about to buy some psyllium husk from a health food store instead. She is looking into whether there is an aspartame free version.
Thing is, I only need the Fybogel because of medications 😂 My apixaban contains iron oxide in the shell. It’s something I’ve avoided for years as I know its effect on my gut. You just can’t win! (I suppose I understand that some people need to differentiate their tablets by colour.)
I buy psyllium husk from the health food shop instead of having fybogel on prescription for that very reason. I don’t like that artificial orange flavour either.
I bought some today! The pharmacist got back to me to say that there was no prescribable option without aspartame. I’m glad that at least Gaviscon has brought out an option - although I suppose there is the sugar! But it’s not something I take constantly. I’m a great believer in eating normal food in moderation, without too much processed stuff. Have avoided sweeteners for years - they taste horrible anyway, sort of metallic.
I mix the psyllium husk in lukewarm water. It’s a bit like drinking a sawdust shake but you get used to it.
Thank you for flagging this. It's a tricky one. I try and avoid artificial sweetened food/drink, but sometimes you can't. The key thing is a) are some people susceptible regardless, or b) is it down to the amount we take in.Remember the other stuff (sugar), causes tooth decay, body fat increase, and diabetes with possible amputation.
Best policy would be to try and avoid it all, but these days with the expanded use of sugar as an industrial preservative you can't always tell (if you see 'souring agent'on a label it means there's so much sugar in it as a preservative they put something in to kill the sweetness a bit so it's palatable).
Traditionally in the UK we don't consume 'much' of this but it's increasing.
Must admit that I do have some sugar in my diet - though not to excess. No sweetened tea or coffee since I was 16 or so. A sweetened drink would taste horrible to me. Some sweet products taste horribly over sweet, and in a similar vein, soup in some cafes can be so salty that it’s inedible!
Though, just thinking with these sweetened medications - does Mary Poppins have a lot to answer for?
It doesn’t look good. These sweetening chemicals are in many things we take, even the laxative sachets I use occasionally, I notice after reading your post, this morning.
Steve
I was drinking a daily vitamin powder with Sucralose when my SVT and ectopics began. I cannot touch it or aspartame as my heart goes crazy on both. Even small amount of aspartame in chewing gum sets my heart off.
It is not just the artificial sweeteners it is also the artificial colouring and some preservatives and the cumulative effect of it all plus the sugar, fructose etc that can be problematic. My younger son ,who is now 51, had to be taken off all artificial colouring, sweeteners, and preservatives when he was 8. You would be amazed what a difference in his behaviour that made. It had a dramatic effect. I am quite convinced that a lot of the short temper and bad behaviour is due to certain additives.
i know about this first hand , back in the 80s i was told to loose weight so i started with one cal drink and canderil AS as i a did suffer from epilepsy this AS was in both these two called aspartame and caused me to suffer more with my epilepsy. at the time america was doing reshearch on this drug causing people to suffer with epilepsy and other things so i stopped taking it and sure enough the problems stop like you say it is in all drinks just about and medication i have to be carefull about anti inflamatory tabels as they do the same .
Seems appropriate to warn pet owners of the extreme danger of xylitol to your pets, especially dogs. Xylitol, often now called birch sugar to try to avoid the nasty connections and make it sound nicer KILLS dogs even in minute amounts. One little piece of chewing gum like Wrigleys extra which contains xylitol is enough to kill a dog the size of a Yorkie or Jack Russel. It's in shop bought cakes,biscuits and many children's medicines that may possibly be given to pets. It's even used in doggy toothpaste which is crazy. If you give the dog a tiny bit of cake you bought, check the ingredients carefully. When I just thought my dog had picked up a piece of chewing gum I had to rush her to the vet who was standing at the door with a syringe ready to make her sick. Thankfully she hadn't eaten it but itw as so urgent we broke every sped limit.
So last night, needed some hydration and realized I still have some Propel Water lying around, a good healthy alternative to my usual Gatorade Zero, which contains Sucralose.
Or so I thought 
So after downing 2 small bottles, I decided to read the label. No wonder it tastes so good. SUCRALOSE This junk is everywhere!
Jim
The government and fda are a joke!
I remember Tab coming out in the UK when I was a kid in primary school. It tasted absolutely foul. There was another one on the market called One Cal around the same time, equally foul tasting. I remember the ads on TV, along with the Slimcea and Nimble adverts. I’ve always hated the diet industry and the way it infantilises women, telling them that eating is “naughty” when it’s an essential biological process that keeps us alive. But that’s another rant for another venue 😉
Weren’t those drinks sweetened with saccharine back then? I remember Sweetex tablets coming out around then too, and another brand. They tasted bitter and disgusting. I’m not sure if they were advertised on TV, I think they might have been. As a little girl these ads made grownup life look so glamorous, that it was all about wearing bikinis and going to the beach.
I’m amazed and horrified. A few months ago, I put myself on a supposedly heart-healthy diet after my GP surgery told me I had high cholesterol and high blood sugar and threatened me with statins. The new regime included a daily Benecol drink with plant stanols, as recommended by Heart UK. Sweetened with sucralose. Since then my incidence of AF has gone through the roof, and I wonder now if the sucralose is the culprit. I’ve always avoided artificial sweeteners before but I was thinking this was for my health and I was following advice! Into the bin with those then
Yes, that’s right! I had forgotten the pinched “waist”.
Not what you're looking for?
You may also like...
My Story
aspirin and not warfarin. My Dr is adamant that I should go back on warfarin. For obvious reasons I...
A Story about Magnesium
in law, a farmer in Ireland about this and he agreed. He said government and EU was now encouraging...
Ablation success stories?
days accompanied by bouts of indigestion. But for about a month now my stomach is calm and AFIB...
Ablation success stories
Travel insurance : a story.
AFib? Please read my story 
My AF story in Woman and Home Magazine!!
Anyone out there with really positive post-ablation stories?
