2023 is coming to an end, and looking back on the topic of food safety this year, the carcinogenic storm of aspartame will definitely be included in the list of top ten events.
But the sweetener turmoil did not end here, and when the customs closed at the end of the year, the European Union came to another urgent order.
On December 20, 2023, after re-evaluating the food safety of erythritol, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) set the acceptable daily intake (ADI) of the additive at 0.5 grams per kilogram of body weight, which translates to a person weighing 60 kilograms of body weight should not consume more than 30 grams per day.
Sweeteners, also known as sugar substitutes, are different from ordinary white sugar, the metabolism of sugar substitutes is not absorbed by the human body, the calories are low, and they are generally degraded after hydrolysis. Therefore, sugar substitutes will not cause an increase in blood sugar, which is of great significance for reducing the risk of obesity, dental caries, and cardiovascular disease.
Among the many sugar substitutes, erythriol seems to have more advantages.
Erythritol as a sugar substitute has 4 advantages:
Low energy: only 0.21 kcal/g (5% of sucrose calorie), significantly lower than other sugar alcohol sweeteners;
High sweetness: It has a higher sweetness among nutritional sweeteners, second only to xylitol and maltitol;
Naturalness: widely found in natural vegetables and fruits (such as melon, watermelon, pear, grape, etc.) and fermented foods (such as cheese, soy sauce, etc.);
Supports oral health: Erythritol cannot be converted by bacteria in the mouth and does not cause tooth decay.
Because it has been given the title of the safest sugar substitute, the ADI value has not been set for erythriol in the world, and the mainland "National Food Safety Standard for the Use of Food Additives" (GB2760-2014) has not set a maximum limit for it.
The above advantages, coupled with the hype of merchants as a product selling point, have made erythriol the top of the sugar substitute industry.
Beverage giants such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Master Kong, Nongfu Spring, and Yuanqi Forest will all launch new beverage products with erythritol as the main sugar substitute in 2023, in addition to plant-based protein drinks and new sports drink products are also using erythritol in large quantities.
But that's when a research report cast doubt on the myth of red scarletol.
On January 19, 2023, Nature Medicine, a sub-journal of the authoritative journal Nature, published a study conducted by Cleveland Clinic, a well-known medical research institution in the United States:
First, by tracking blood concentrations of sugar alcohol sweeteners in the blood of 1200 patients at risk of heart disease, it was suggested that higher sugar alcohol intake was associated with an increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (e.g., myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure). Among them, erythritol is especially obvious!
Subsequently, targeted metabolomics analysis was performed on nearly 3,000 patients in the United States and Europe through two other cohorts. After adjusting for cardiovascular disease-related risk factors (e.g., BMI, smoking, dietary Xi, etc.), the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in the group with the highest levels was increased by 121% (European cohort) and 80% (US cohort) compared with the group with the lowest blood erythritol levels, and there was no gender difference between men and women – confirming erythritol as a potential risk factor for adverse cardiovascular events.
Next, in vitro and animal experiments confirmed that erythritol makes platelets more likely to activate and form blood clots.
Finally, the research team conducted a study on the correlation between erythritol intake and plasma erythritol concentration in 8 healthy volunteers. It was found that after 30 minutes of drinking a drink containing 30 grams of erythritol (equivalent to a commercially available erythritol drink), the plasma erythritol levels of eight volunteers increased thousandfold and continued to rise significantly for the next 2-3 days!
In a report released on December 20, the European Food Safety Authority explained the reason for setting the maximum daily limit for erythritol to avoid triggering diarrhea in consumers, and repeatedly stated that "the available evidence determines that erythritol is not genotoxic and there is no evidence of a link between the consumption of foods containing sweeteners and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and related risk factors." ”
Despite this, it is not difficult to see that the Nature report has raised alarm in the European Union. They also said that they will continue to evaluate the safety of erythriol in the long term.
Science has no end, and human food safety is always on the way.
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