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In part 6 of this Exclusive Interview, Catherine Champagne talks with Diabetes in Control Publisher Steve Freed about the use of artificial and low calorie sweeteners.
Catherine M. Champagne, PhD, RDN, LDN, FADA, FAND, FTOS is a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University.
Transcript of this video segment:
Freed: Well that’s interesting you bring up low calorie sweeteners. Like you said there’s always been a debate — causes cancer too much is no good – but it restricts your calories, therefore it’s beneficial especially for people with diabetes. You know you go to Starbucks and they have the yellow and the pink and the white packages. So from your knowledge, number one, is it safe? And number two, should people with diabetes be using more, because you just said they don’t use very much
Champagne: They use some but the evidence doesn’t say that that it’s overused. A lot of the data seems to suggest that people who consume low calorie sweeteners do it, for instance, to maybe embark upon a fast food meal that has maybe a thousand calories, and so in an effort to not add more calories they will choose a diet beverage for instance. I don’t think that there is a significant amount of data to suggest that it causes cancer except maybe in rats when they’re consuming what would equate to 300 packets in a human. And in fact the presentation that I just went to has indicated that the mouse data is using high levels that would not replicate with humans. So I think those are important things to remember. And I guess if you’re concerned the green packet and the monkfruit are probably the more natural of the artificial sweeteners.
Freed: So what was the last time you had a sugary drink?
Champagne: It has been a while. I can’t remember when I had the last sugary drink and I try not to consume diet beverages but I use artificial or low calorie sweeteners in my coffee on a daily basis. But I don’t drink a lot of soda.