A deep dive on the World Health Organization’s guideline against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control

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If you love a fizzy drink or two - this one is for you. With Dr Tim Crowe’s extensive nutrition research background we discuss the WHO’s advice against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control. By the end of this episode you will know how to apply this guidance to your everyday.
We cover:

• Background of added sugars and non-sugar sweeteners in the diet
• Overview of the WHO’s systematic review (the evidence that informs the new guideline)
• Non sugar sweeteners and weight control in the short & long term
• Potential undesirable effects from long-term use of non-sugar sweeteners such as increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease
• Other health effects
• Non-sugar sweeteners and their impact on eating behaviour (e.g. appetite and desire to eat)
• Non-sugar sweeteners and their impact on sweet preference (e.g. sugar intake and sweet taste perception)
• Do individuals need to consider the overall sweetness of their diet? If so, how to do it.
• Non-sugar sweeteners in the Australian and New Zealand food supply

One-liners you don’t want to miss:

“There is some evidence that we have been reducing the amount of added sugars in our diet over the last 10 or so years. And this is probably coming from a shift from the soft drinks to the diet varieties.”

“If artificial sweeteners were to drive our consumption of sugary foods and overeat more, we should’ve seen a much bigger weight gain in the observational research.”

"We have the WHO telling us that if you are drinking sweetened beverages your number 1 substitution is to swap this with naturally occurring sugars, so foods like fruit or a beverage that hasn’t been sweetened. This will help reduce the overall sweetness of your diet and you should be doing this form a very young age.”

“We can all agree we are eating too much added sugar, it’s not only in soft drinks, many foods contain added sugar and the free sugars. We still have a way to go to reduce these in our diet hence the non-nutritive or non-calorie sweeteners being a partial solution to at least transition people to less sugar in their diet.”
References

Rios-Leyvraz M, Montez J. Health effects of the use of non-sugar sweeteners: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

Use of non-sugar sweeteners: WHO guideline. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2023. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Intense sweeteners review: Steviol glycosides risk assessment, March 2023.