Listen to Story The Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), a non-profit medical research institute, has published India's first study on how the artificial sweetener sucralose affects heart and metabolic health in adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The researchers of the study wanted to find out what happens when people with diabetes mellitus replace table sugar with sucralose in their tea and coffee. Over 12 weeks, 179 Indians with type 2 diabetes participated in this research, which is a randomised controlled study looking at replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners.
The results showed that using small amounts of sucralose in daily drinks like coffee and tea does not negatively affect blood sugar levels or HbA1c, a marker of long-term blood sugar control. In fact, the study found slight improvements in body weight, waist size, and body mass index (BMI). Researchers stated that while many studies have looked at artificial sweeteners , there is little data on their effects when used in everyday drinks.
Many people with diabetes in India use sugar in their tea and coffee, contributing to their daily sugar intake. Given India's high carbohydrate consumption, especially from foods like white rice and refined wheat, this adds to the risks for type 2 diabetes. Sweeteners are of 2 types - nutritive (like fructose contain calories are not useful for people with diabetes) and non-nutritive (sweeteners like sucralose or stevia contain zero calories and are intensely sweet, thereby can also replace sugar).
According to Dr V Mohan, senior diabetologist and Chairman of MDRF, sucralose is one of the popular non-nutritive or artificial sweeteners used in India and abroad. "Till recently, most of the recent studies were done on large amounts of artificial sweeteners which were mainly consumed along with diet colas, desserts or for making sweets. In India, most people take sweeteners like sucralose to replace their sugar for their tea or coffee.
As this amounts to only 3 to 4 spoons of sugar daily, the amount of sweeteners used is also small," said Dr Mohan. Surprisingly, there were no studies that looked at replacing the sugar consumed in tea or coffee with sweeteners. "We therefore took up this study of sucralose in people having type 2 diabetes who were also taking up sugar.
We advised one group to continue with their sugar consumption and the other group to replace sucralose instead of sugar," he added. The idea of this study was based on recent observations by some research groups indicating that using artificial sweeteners can increase the HbA1c and glucose levels as well as lead to weight gain. Contrary to this, the researchers found that taking artificial sweeteners like sucralose resulted in a decrease in body weight, BMI and waist circumference.
There were also some favourable effects on serum lipids levels, added Dr Mohan. Hence we concluded that , taking small amounts of sweeteners does not any deleterious effects and infact may be beneficial. These studies are novel and were published in the prestigious medical journal - Diabetes Therapy.
This was a proper The study's timing is significant as the WHO recently advised against using artificial sweeteners for weight control, though these guidelines were aimed mainly at people without diabetes. This advice caused concerns about the use of artificial sweeteners among those with type 2 diabetes. In the study, participants were split into two groups: one used sucralose instead of sugar in their coffee or tea, and the other continued using sugar.
Their lifestyle and medications remained the same. After 12 weeks, there was no significant difference in HbA1c levels between the two groups. However, the group using sucralose saw slight improvements in BMI, waist size, and weight.
The average weight loss was 0.3 kg, BMI decreased by 0.1 kg/m2, and waist size reduced by 0.
9 cm. The study was funded by Zydus Wellness, which provided the sucralose sweetener in pellet, liquid, and powder forms for the research..
