You’ve Been Lied To About Artificial Sweetener’s Health Risks ~ Chris Williamson

artificial sweeteners. Has anything new come out recently?

In my view, artificial sweeteners, and low-calorie sweeteners in general, are by and large safe, and very effective for fat loss. There have been multiple studies where they found that it can even help with diet adherence, and at worst, they're equal to water. So they don't stimulate, uh, blood sugar response, they don't affect your insulin. And this is not just me saying, it's actually pretty much all the big scientific institutions that agree with this, uh, just not the, uh, media headlines, which, uh, are very keen to take a rat study where they have dosages that are the equivalent of consuming, like, 200 cans of Diet Coke per day. And then if you do that for the equivalent of, uh, a lifetime-

[laughs]

... then there is an increase in the number of, uh, tumors that are found in these, in this group versus the other group.

Mm.

Right? So there have been numerous organizations, the European Union, FDA, that have looked at pretty much all of the popular sweeteners, especially aspartame and sucralose, and concluded that they are safe. Gut microbiome also in most well-controlled studies, not an effect. Now, are they 100% perfectly safe for your whole life, regardless of dosage? No, definitely not regardless of dosage. And when you consume them for decades, is there potential for harm? Sure. It's still something that we have not fully researched, like we don't have st- uh, randomized controlled trials spanning 50 years. But you also have to weigh the pros with the cons. So there are potential negative health effects, maybe, not really in the best controlled research, but at least in animal research with super high dosages and stuff. You have to weigh that with the more... with the better diet adherence that you might get, with the higher satisfaction from your diet, with just the enjoyment of consuming foods that, uh, you like to eat more when they are sweeter. With the fact that maybe now you're eating vegetables instead of, uh, something with a lot more sugar because you can sweeten the vegetables and it's now okay for you. So you have to weigh all of these positives with any potential negatives. And in that sense-

Mm-hmm

... I think for most individuals, on practical basis, sweeteners are a net positive. If you don't want to use sweeteners, fine. But if it helps you with fat loss, and that in itself is probably going to affect your... than that in itself is probably going to more positively affect your health than any negatives of their consumption.

Yes. The... If the choice is between high-calorie drink containing a shitload of sugar, and you getting a trace amount of fucking Ace-K or something, uh, we'd probably take the... This was the, um, I, I found it a really interesting takeaway from Johan on, on that book about Ozempic, and he kind of created a, um, kind of like a taxonomy or, or like he stratified out people into BMIs, and said anybody under BMI 20, uh, 27, he thinks there's no real benefit. This is largely for aesthetic reasons, and there's all of these downstream health risks that may be worrying. 27 to 35 is the gray area in which where he said, uh, we, you know, it really