The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning citizens not to consume sugar-free sweets to control body weight or reduce non-communicable diseases (NCDs), as sweeteners can be just as dangerous.

Specifically, the Agency made an official announcement today of the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence suggesting that the use of non-sugar sweeteners (NSS) does not offer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children, instead causing side effects in health.

As noted: “The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence, which suggests that the use of NSS does not provide long-term benefits in reducing body fat in adults or children. The results of the review also suggest that there may be potential side effects from long-term use of the sweeteners, such as increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mortality in adults’.

“Replacing free sugars with NSS sugar-free sweeteners does not help long-term weight control. People should consider other ways to reduce their intake of free sugars, such as eating foods with natural sugars such as fruit, or unsweetened foods and drinks,” says Francesco Branca, WHO Director of Nutrition and Food Security. “NSS are not essential nutritional factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce overall dietary sweetness, starting early in life, to improve their health.

It also refers to the relevant WHO post: “The recommendation applies to all people, except people with pre-existing diabetes, and includes all synthetic and naturally occurring or modified non-nutritive sweeteners that are not classified as sugars and are found in industrial foods and beverages or sold on their own to be added to food and beverages by consumers.

The list of “suspect” sweeteners

Common NSS include the

  • acesulfame potassium,
  • aspartame
  • advantami
  • the cyclamen
  • the neotami
  • the saccharin
  • sucralose
  • stevia and
  • the stevia derivatives

The recommendation does not apply to personal care and hygiene products containing NSS, such as toothpastes, skin creams and medicines, nor to low-calorie sugars and sugar alcohols (polyols), which are sugars or sugar derivatives that contain calories and therefore they are not considered NSS.

However, the World Health Organization emphasizes that because the relationship observed in the evidence between NSS sweeteners and disease outcomes may be confounded by baseline characteristics of study participants and complex patterns of use of these sweeteners, the recommendation has been assessed as conditional, following WHO guidelines development procedures. “This signals that policy decisions based on this recommendation may require substantial discussion in specific country contexts, linked, for example, to the extent of consumption in different age groups.”

“The WHO guideline on NSS is part of a series of existing and upcoming healthy eating guidelines aimed at establishing lifelong healthy eating habits, improving diet quality and reducing the risk of non-communicable diseases globally” concludes the related post.