Is there a link between sugar substitutes and cognative decline?

I have tried to avoid sugar substitutes as I have seen so many contradicting articles on their safety and have seen ones considered safe pulled off the market after many years of sale. Here are a couple of articles that question their safety. It is just as easy to find articles that say they are harmless so in this day of dog eat dog food safety, it is up to you to make an "informed choice". Just be aware that many millions are being spent on all media, including the internet, to sway that choice one way or the other,

There’s a Link Between Sugar Substitutes and Cognitive Decline—Here’s What You Need to Know

While it is a long read, this is the best I have read on sugar substitutes and it contains a lot of words that indicate there are two types of studies, one based on the toxicity of the substitute and another on "normal" consumption. I know individuals who drink "diet sodas" and eat "diet prepackaged meals" and their consumption does not fall in that normal classification. I do raise stevia in my greenhouse and dry it for winter use, I also sometimes buy it. Is it safe? Don't know and I have weaned my sweet tooth to honey and stevia as much as possible, Last 5 pound bag of sugar lasted me about 3 years but it is very hard to find any prepared foods that don't have sugar or a sugar substitute. Prepare as much of my food as possible to avoid both excess sweeteners and salt. Find that garlic seems to provide the same benefits and I love the taste,

Artificial sweeteners as a sugar substitute: Are they really safe? - PMC

 

I try to advoid substitutes of any kind. Nature provides most things better, its just finding it.

 

Yep, am at almost 100 % honey and some stevia for my home use. Hard to avoid either sugar or sweeteners when you buy foods as most people are addicted to them and they prepare food for sale for the mass market. I find a lot of the stuff I buy in the store either to sweet or to salty, Buy a can of healthy choice soup and it has the amount of salt in one serving that my heart Dr said be my limit for two days. Sugar is even worse. A 16 oz CocoCola has 12.5 tea spoons of sugar. Know people that drink 2 or more per day, in past it was me. Quit cold turkey about 25 years ago. I do think I went thru withdrawal period. Did not go to diet Coke, I used to drink about 4 or more cans or bottles a day, I usually eat the whole can of tomato soup, live alone, and one can of Campbell tomato has about 7.5 teaspoons of sugar. Note in both of these cases sugar may mean high fruitose corn and that will be indicated on the can or bottle. Bottle of Coke and a bowel of soup and you are up to 20 teaspoons of sugar. The Dr indicate you should limit added sugars to about 12 teaspoons a day, Usually eat oatmeal with 1/2 cup of apple sauce, 10 grams of sugar in unsweetened, 36 grams in sweetened, Now if I have it on frosted flakes with sweetened apple sauce and milk, I am getting another 22 grams of sugar, 58 grams total or another 14 teaspoons. Sugar and salt don't just sneak up on you if you consume prepared products, they hit you over the head.

 

Nah...I simply don't use either of them. The only time I eat sugar is in bake goods. my morning tea has a drop of milk. I definitely don't drink soda with sugar or substitutes, normally don't eat any candy except sometimes a bit of dark chocolate but homemade cookies, banana bread or pies - that's my Achilles heel so sign me up! LOL!

 

Fake sugar, statins - both will eff with your mind.

 

Anymore, I look at all super processed/artificial food stuffs as dangerous. Try and eat natural, if that is even possible anymore with all the glyphosate we have used in the last 50 years. I wonder how much of that stuff is everywhere we grow any kind of food from grain to potatoes.

 

Route Clearance brings up a good point. The soil and water both collect and hold the chemicals applied to the land or run off from where it is applied. This in turn gets absorbed by the plants and passed down to us. We can read the label, but it might not tell the whole story. Lots of people would have problems with my greenhouse as I use hydroponics and not pure organics. They are in the soil and it would take years for nature to take them completely out. Same way the wind and insects can pollinate your heirloom seeds with the other plants in your garden and make it difficult or impossible to easily keep your own seeds.

Broker that's a good point. A researcher who comes up with a conclusion that the person awarding the grant doesn't agree with will not only not get a another grant, but as in the field of climate "research" may for all practical purposes be black balled. It has developed to the point that even the organizations doing the research, university commercial labs, etc, will not allow studies in areas that they know will conflict with the official line. They know that if the grad student doing research proves in a study that for example soda is harmful to the juvenile growth, may cause over weight, they may not only lose the income from the grants from soda companies, but the government as well. Thus your thesis adviser just strongly advises you to pick a different topic. Ever wonder why Loma Linda University with 4500 students has a national reputation in nutritional research? Might be that being run by a bunch of vegetarians they encourage their grad students and Dr's to do research that would not be encouraged at for example at a university in Texas on the harmful effects of eating beef with a high fat content, Don't think you are going to find a study out of Texas that said eating a well marbled steak or a good barbecue could be harmful to your heart health. Sad to say, but for most of our foods we can only make a guess and personal decisions as the data for and against is usually biased. They can use chemicals on corn, soy bean and cotton as they are not "human" foods and feed them to the animals we eat. As well as make HFC sugar and cotton seed oil, soy oil and corn oil for cooking that we do eat. In addition over 90 % of the corn, soy beans, and cotton grown in the US is genetically altered and that is only done so they can use Roundup or a similar product. That is the other side of the note on the label that states may contain GM. In many products that is 100 % of the product. Corn meal, soy oil, etc.