(Aug 3, 2026 02:55 PM)C C Wrote: https://www.sciencealert.com/are-artificial-sweeteners-really-worse-for-your-brain-than-sugar-an-epidemiologist-explains

EXCERPTS: Artificial sweeteners are in the news almost constantly. If you believe the headlines, they are terrible blights on our health that are far worse than the sugar they replace. This isn't always supported by the evidence, but it's something that we love to hear, and so it gets reported on almost weekly regardless of what the data actually shows.

The most recent furor over artificial sweeteners is a perfect example. The headlines have been claiming for months that artificial sweeteners speed up cognitive decline. According to a recent study, there are six of these 'dangerous chemicals', including common ones like xylitol and aspartame, that may be causing our brains to rot more quickly.

[...] This is all made especially remarkable given that it doesn't really show any issues from artificial sweeteners at all. The study itself is a very simple piece of observational research. ... This research suffers from the normal issues that such observational studies do. One big thing is that food frequency questionnaires don't really measure intake of food. They measure what people THINK they eat, but we know that we are often unreliable historians.

[...] As letters to the journal have noted, there are also serious questions about the biological plausibility of the claim. ... This particular research therefore proves very little about artificial sweeteners and brain health. At worst, the study shows that there may be some negative impacts, although it depends on which analysis you choose to believe.

[...] Despite decades of fearmongering when it comes to artificial sweeteners, the reality is that they are very well-tested and generally not harmful... (MORE - missing details)