How Safe Is Stevia?

Researchers divided the mice into two groups. Group A ate food laced with the sweetener aspartame. After three months the aspartame group had higher levels of blood sugar than the mice that ate normal food. There is also speculation that same is true of other artificial sweeteners even ones made from sugar derivates or from the Stevia genus of plants.

This isn't (really) a rant about sugar because let's face it you've heard it all before. You are well aware that too much sugar makes you fat and has ominous links to type 2 diabetes. You know the facts, so I'm not going to patronise you with a concoction of sensationalist stats. There is one question I need to ask though, it's nothing special, but it is important 'are you addicted to sugar?' Take a minute, think about it. Addiction is when you cannot control a behaviour or action, can you control how much sugar you eat?

Thesis: Overall, recent studies have shown that sugar substitutes isn’t and can cause potential health problems.

The use of artificial sweeteners in beverages and food has been on a steady rise since 1969, the year it was authorized in the United States of America. The popularity of artificial sweeteners has been on a rise because of the benefit that it is a zero calorie sweetener .Even though artificial sweeteners have some great benefits many scientists believe that it causes adverse effects such as cancer, weight gain and depression. I strongly believe that consumers are not aware of the side effects of artificial sweeteners hence the increase in consumption since 1969.

There are plenty of reasons and research studies that show how destructive sugar can be for your health if not managed properly, “and unfortunately our standard American Diet is anything but balanced.”(Konie 1) Americans don’t manage their sugar levels, let alone manage their sugar intake. The exponential growth of obesity in underway and the main cause. Sugar. Many people don’t understand this but sugar is perfectly fine as long as you can control it, many also don’t realize just, “how dangerous the extremes can be.”(Konie 1)

The people of the United States trust the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate what goes into our food and keep us safe. The FDA is partially credible for the overuse of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Because of the government's loose definition on what is "all natural", these big companies are able to mislead consumers by advertising their "green", "healthy", "all natural products" to naive customers that fail to read the nutrition label. Customers often think they are making a smart health choice, and perhaps even pay more for a bottle that has "all natural" plastered all over the front of it. If the FDA would set stricter rules on how much artificial sweeteners can be used and how it must be advertised, these problems, including obesity, that may be caused by artificial sweeteners would be greatly

Stevia is often used as a sugar substitute, but how is it different from sugar? As most people know, sugar has calories. To be exact, there is about 48 calories in a tablespoon. However, Stevia is harvested from the plant ‘stevia rebaudiana’. Stevia is 30 times sweeter than sugar in its refined form and in its raw state, it’s almost 300 times sweeter than sugar! Stevia also has health benefits, like lowering your blood pressure, and more. Nonetheless, too much Stevia can be bad for you.

Companies that use aspartame in their soft drink products, like Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke, are entangled with the safety controversy. Though both companies do not directly address the use of aspartame in their advertisement, their opinions of the controversy may be noted. Diet Pepsi up until 2012, like Diet Coke, used aspartame to sweeten their Diet Pepsi . However, Pepsi, during a rebranding movement, decided to end their use of aspartame; instead, the company now uses Sucralose (Spelnda) and acesulfame potassium (Ace K) . This decision was not explicitly advertised because the company did not want to draw attention to the fact that they are still using artificial sweetener . This switch is intended to help Pepsi’s taste and consistency last

Sweeteners are usually made from plants or fruits, such as Stevia or Erythritol. This means they have little or no calories. They taste just as sweet as sugar. Sweeteners can also lower blood pressure which is

Sugar is one of the leading causes of disease all across America, and too much over consumption could turn to be fatal. According to Sarah Elizabeth Richards in the article “The Bitter Truth about Sugar and its effects on our Health” She states “It’s long been implicated

First and foremost, the initial hypothesis of this experiment is that stevia, a plant-based and water-soluble sweetener, will inhibit the activity of the studied enzyme, α-amylase and that sucralose (i.e Splenda), an artificially produced sweetener, will have the opposite effect. Both stevia and sucralose designed for diabetics are expected to inhibit the activity of α-amylase more than sucrose. With this in mind, the results obtained from the experiment showed that stevia does indeed inhibit the activity of α-amylase most effectively compared to sucrose and sucralose. This can be explained by the small range of % inhibition values, ranging from 10-20 % inhibition. This can be observed in Figure 1 where one can notice that the standard error bars are

NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, and Equal-Measure are all brand names for aspartame, a low calorie sugar substitute used in more than 90 countries to sweeten foods and beverages. Aspartame is a synthetic chemical that is created through the combination of the amino acids phenylalanine and aspartic acid, and a small amount of methanol. Aspartame can be found in several products, such as soft drinks, over-the counter drugs, vitamin and herb supplements, instant breakfasts, candy, breath mints, cereals, sugar-free chewing gum, coffee, juice, and tea beverages, tabletop sweeteners, and gelatin desserts. This product may have seemed like a dream come true when it was first invented in 1981

As we hear of more studies exclaiming alarming findings of negative health concerns related to obesity and our continuously growing percentage of obesity in our country, particularly childhood obesity, sugar is in the spotlight. We often hear of dieticians and weight loss experts warning us that we

Advertisement and commercial industries portray table sugar, and other artificial sweeteners as fuel needed by the body. Though body and body cells need sugar as fuel source. The body mechanism is just like the case of engine, there are bad fuels which can destroy engine. Table sugar is just a bad fuel for the body. Several research studies have arraigned sugar first culprit for the epidemics of complicated health problems such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer. Worst of it, several research now ranking sugar as addictive substance as drugs.

Controversies, Infobase Learning, 26 July 2010, http://icof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?ID=2311. Accessed 20 Feb. 2017. This source was written in order to discuss the benefits and harms of using artificial sweeteners in place of sugar. This article was published in the Issues and Controversies database; therefore it has been used in academic writing previously. We can conclude that the source is unbiased and credible. It compared the high health risks of sugar to the very low health risks of artificial sweeteners. Also extensively covered, is the history and development of artificial sweeteners, and the opposing opinions on both. This source is lengthier than many similar ones, and contains more factual information and research-backed claims. Of all the sources, this one supports the thesis the most by providing