Is Stevia Safe?
Stevia: Having Our Cake and Eating It, Too?
© 2009 Nancy Appleton PhD and G.N. Jacobs
www.nancyappleton.com
Is stevia a good sugar replacement? Yes, up to a point. Sugar addicted people must stop and heal before switching to stevia.
Stevia, a plant-extract originally from Central and South America, has been used as a sweetener for several centuries. It has been described alternately as either 30 or 300 times as sweet as sugar. Stevia has slowly gained popularity as an alternative to sugar; it was initially marketed in the US as a dietary supplement, and only recently as a sweetener. Stevia has slowly gained popularity as an alternative to sugar, even though it wasn’t marketed until recently.
One would think a food or drug is either safe or not, right? As of September 2009, the Food and Drug Administration has given support to two stevia products, Truvia and Purevia, for use as a sweetener in sodas and other drinks. What changed the stance of a government organization that used a 1985 study that described stevia as a mutagenic agent in the liver (possibly carcinogenic)?
Apparently, Coca-Cola and other large manufacturers of drinks and sodas have twisted the arms of some regulators, because as more people grasp Sugar Bad, Stevia Good, Big Soda needs to give the people soda that appears healthy in order to keep up sales. Trust a corporation to turn something potentially helpful in moderation into something you still shouldn’t consume.
No soda is safe to drink. The primary culprit after sugar is phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid is an industrial solvent used to clean toilets and kill insects. Putting the amount of phosphorus from one soda into your body damages the calcium-phosphorus ratio.
Truvia will eventually be stuffed into the rainbow of packets on the table at our favorite eateries. Presently that rainbow includes white (sugar or sucrose), blue (aspartame), pink (saccharin) and yellow (sucralose). For purely aesthetic reasons how about green for Truvia?
However, don’t eat stevia from these Truvia packs because it will be mixed with
Stevia, a plant-extract originally from Central and South America, has been used as a sweetener for several centuries. It has been described alternately as either 30 or 300 times as sweet as sugar. Stevia has slowly gained popularity as an alternative to sugar; it was initially marketed in the US as a dietary supplement, and only recently as a sweetener. Stevia has slowly gained popularity as an alternative to sugar, even though it wasn’t marketed until recently.
One would think a food or drug is either safe or not, right? As of September 2009, the Food and Drug Administration has given support to two stevia products, Truvia and Purevia, for use as a sweetener in sodas and other drinks. What changed the stance of a government organization that used a 1985 study that described stevia as a mutagenic agent in the liver (possibly carcinogenic)?
Apparently, Coca-Cola and other large manufacturers of drinks and sodas have twisted the arms of some regulators, because as more people grasp Sugar Bad, Stevia Good, Big Soda needs to give the people soda that appears healthy in order to keep up sales. Trust a corporation to turn something potentially helpful in moderation into something you still shouldn’t consume.
No soda is safe to drink. The primary culprit after sugar is phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid is an industrial solvent used to clean toilets and kill insects. Putting the amount of phosphorus from one soda into your body damages the calcium-phosphorus ratio.
Truvia will eventually be stuffed into the rainbow of packets on the table at our favorite eateries. Presently that rainbow includes white (sugar or sucrose), blue (aspartame), pink (saccharin) and yellow (sucralose). For purely aesthetic reasons how about green for Truvia?
However, don’t eat stevia from these Truvia packs because it will be mixed with
dextrose or maltodextrin as the first ingredient (largest amount) in each pack, as is the case with the other colors in the bin. These are sugar derivatives that will adulterate whatever is good and useful about stevia. Mixing good things with bad things only ruins the food value of the beneficial.
So, what is so good about stevia that we actually are cautiously optimistic about the eventual release of small bags of pure stevia powder in the supermarket for use in baking, coffee, grapefruit and lemonade? Well, despite the ignominious beginning to stevia as a sweetener, a study that had been described as being “able to classify distilled water as a mutagen”, enough people have used the product now that there are health studies that show benefits for many diseases.
A study published in 2000 gave stevioside (stevia’s active ingredient) to 60 hypertension patients with a placebo group of 49. Results described as significant for reducing blood pressure supplemented similar animal studies.i
Stevia’s reputed limited effect on blood glucose naturally led to diabetes studies. A Denmark study took blood glucose readings from 12 type-2 diabetes patients before eating stevia or cornstarch with their meals and a couple of hours later. The stevia group showed blood glucose levels at least
So, what is so good about stevia that we actually are cautiously optimistic about the eventual release of small bags of pure stevia powder in the supermarket for use in baking, coffee, grapefruit and lemonade? Well, despite the ignominious beginning to stevia as a sweetener, a study that had been described as being “able to classify distilled water as a mutagen”, enough people have used the product now that there are health studies that show benefits for many diseases.
A study published in 2000 gave stevioside (stevia’s active ingredient) to 60 hypertension patients with a placebo group of 49. Results described as significant for reducing blood pressure supplemented similar animal studies.i
Stevia’s reputed limited effect on blood glucose naturally led to diabetes studies. A Denmark study took blood glucose readings from 12 type-2 diabetes patients before eating stevia or cornstarch with their meals and a couple of hours later. The stevia group showed blood glucose levels at least
18-percent less than the starch group, leading to the possibility that diabetes patients have finally found the sweetener that will allow them to have their sweet cake and eat it, too.ii
But after the FDA has spent many years trying to keep stevia out of the U.S. marketplace, we should ask if there are any side effects. A study conducted by the Burdock Group generally supports the safety of stevia, finding no adverse effects in rats at the massive doses such studies use to determine carcinogenic or mutagen properties of foods.iii
And so we give stevia qualified support because while almost no information has surfaced to say that this sweetener hurts people, we realize that the weak link in any health plan is the patient. Many of us are unlikely to moderate our consumption of stevia because we just have to have ice cream, chocolate cake, or soda. Too much of a good thing isn’t good. But, on the range of things that are sweet but not named sugar, stevia is a great start.
i Chan, P, et al “A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Study of the Effectiveness and Tolerability of Oral Stevioside in Human Hypertension” Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2000 September; 50(3): 215–220. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2125.2000.00260.x
But after the FDA has spent many years trying to keep stevia out of the U.S. marketplace, we should ask if there are any side effects. A study conducted by the Burdock Group generally supports the safety of stevia, finding no adverse effects in rats at the massive doses such studies use to determine carcinogenic or mutagen properties of foods.iii
And so we give stevia qualified support because while almost no information has surfaced to say that this sweetener hurts people, we realize that the weak link in any health plan is the patient. Many of us are unlikely to moderate our consumption of stevia because we just have to have ice cream, chocolate cake, or soda. Too much of a good thing isn’t good. But, on the range of things that are sweet but not named sugar, stevia is a great start.
i Chan, P, et al “A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Study of the Effectiveness and Tolerability of Oral Stevioside in Human Hypertension” Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2000 September; 50(3): 215–220. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2125.2000.00260.x
ii Gregersen S, et al. “Antihyperglycemic Effects of Stevioside in Type-2 Diabetic Subjects.” Metabolism 2004 Jan;53(1):73-76
iii Williams LD, Burdock GA “Genotoxicity Studies on a High-Purity Rebauside A Preparation.” Food Chem Toxicol. 2009 Aug;47(8):1831-1836
iii Williams LD, Burdock GA “Genotoxicity Studies on a High-Purity Rebauside A Preparation.” Food Chem Toxicol. 2009 Aug;47(8):1831-1836
Is Stevia Safe?
Issue 13 | Cancer | May/June 2010
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