New Cleveland Clinic research shows that consuming foods with erythritol, a popular artificial sweetener, increases risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. The findings, from a new intervention study in healthy volunteers, show erythritol made platelets (a type of blood cell) more active, which can raise the risk of blood clots. Sugar (glucose) did not have this effect.
Published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology , the research adds to increasing evidence that erythritol may not be as safe as currently classified by food regulatory agencies and should be reevaluated as an ingredient. The study was conducted by a team of Cleveland Clinic researchers as part of a series of investigations on the physiological effects of common sugar substitutes. "Many professional societies and clinicians routinely recommend that people at high cardiovascular risk – those with obesity, diabetes or metabolic syndrome – consume foods that contain sugar substitutes rather than sugar," said senior and corresponding author Stanley Hazen, M.
D., Ph.D.
, chair of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences in Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute and co-section head of Preventive Cardiology. "These findings underscore the importance of further long-term clinical studies to assess the cardiovascular safety of erythritol and other sugar substitutes." Erythritol and other artificial sweeteners are common replacements for table sugar in low-calorie, low-carbohyd.