Health scares are nothing new. Each year someone makes noise about things we shouldn’t eat because they maybe possibly sort of cause cancer, heart disease, or obesity. It is an unending fact of modern life as sure as summer blockbusters. This isn’t always the most reassuring or helpful fact though. Half the time it seems people figure out that the danger isn’t really the case or only affects a minor subset of the population. In truth, everything these scares bring up is typically just the result of an indistinct study somewhere that a person in the media or a self-promoting researcher decided to shove into the limelight without further study. Not even the 70s were immune to such scares. Back then the culprit was an artificial sweetener and it was supposedly linked to cancer. This has created something of a cultural fear of artificial sweeteners that may or may not still be applicable. Most know making healthy choices is part of maintaining their health and beauty. With that in mind, we’ve put together a primer on what you need to know for your health about sugar and artificial sweeteners.

Sugar
Once you become health conscious, it is almost a reflexive action to check the packaging for the amount of sugar found in a product. Sugars are in many of the products we enjoy the most. Desserts are an obvious source of them, but a more insidious one is the fruit juices we drink to ostensibly make healthier choices. It is hard to get away from sugar at the best of times. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Your body likes sugars and breaks them down readily into energy. It is just that the amount of energy it holds is often more than we can use up in most circumstances simply due to the ubiquity of sugars in common food products. This is because people strive to make things more palatable until even a normally bitter juice is highly sweet. Your body understands sugar just a little too well. You can offset this by continuing to reflexively check the amount of sugar in a given food or drink. Trying to curb the amount can keep sugar in your diet, but help bring it down to healthy levels.

Artificial Sweeteners
Sometimes people have difficulty moderating their sugar intake or have illnesses that make it a risky proposition to have too much sugar. Artificial sweeteners were invented to help get around this issue. They help to provide sweetening in a variety of products without adding all the calories that using sugar would add. We see brand name artificial sweeteners in most restaurants alongside sugar packets, but these sweeteners often have a seemingly sinister reputation. Saccharin was the supposed culprit in the cancer scare of the 70s, but soon became dismissed by official sources once the research was given proper scrutiny. People are still afraid of it. Similarly, aspartame also got a reputation in the 70s that is enjoying a revival to this day courtesy of enthusiasts for “natural” foods. Aspartame also has been categorized as harmless to humans by pretty much every major health organization after careful review of the data. So you shouldn’t hesitate to reach for a packet of artificial sweetener when you want a little sweet with your drink or meal, but don’t want the calories of actual sugar. Just don’t overdo it.

The Making of a Panic
Sugar and artificial sweeteners each have their own set of benefits. The former has a taste everyone knows and recognizes even if it has a lot of calories while the latter can be sweeter with a different taste and no calories. Minor differences are often what cause people to become unnerved. All it takes is one study that shows a causal link and someone somewhere will leap on it. No news sells quite like bad news. People want to capture your attention with a panic to ensure that you keep reading. In truth, all the routine health scares that vanish follow a pattern. Someone discovers a potential cause for harm that requires further study to be sure. This person or another approaches the media before all the research to verify the claim is in. The news media has a frenzy with it and makes people worry. Researchers try to explain the research and keep researching while being ignored. Eventually, all the research is in and the casual potential for a health problem is not statistically significant or non-existent on further review. Studies are published saying as much, but the news never follows up on the panic being wrong as they’re too busy seeking the next panic. You can see this pattern in most major modern health panics.

Sugar and artificial sweeteners are each potentially healthy for you. You just need to use them in moderation like everything else. The scares surrounding artificial sweeteners have yet to do much beyond give major organizations another item for their lists of things that probably don’t have a direct link to cancer. We all want to be healthy, but we should all strive to be informed as well. Those still wary of artificial sweeteners might want to look into other naturally derived sweeteners like Stevia if they still need to avoid sugar. Then you can have your sweet and eat it too.