74 replies to this topic

[PeopleOverCorporateProfit]

I'm sure this has been done before but I couldn't find it.

Which is healthiest?

Agave
Stevia or how about Truvia?
Raw sugar
Erythrito

[niner]

Which is healthiest?

Agave
Stevia or how about Truvia?
Raw sugar
Erythrito

Agave is high fructose. That's not good. I consider Agave to be a scam.
Stevia (Truvia is just a branded stevia) isn't perfect; I recall reading about a conversion by gut microbes into something non-good. OTOH, there's a lot that's good about it; it has some health benefits beyond replacing sugar. I just looked around and couldn't find whatever it was that worried me about stevia. All the conventional tox work on it, mostly relatively short term, seems ok.
Raw sugar is just sugar with a little bit of god knows what in it; molasses and dirt? Basically, it's sugar.

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol. It is less sweet than sugar, so you would need to use a lot, but it is said to be zero-glycemic. I'm really not sure of the health consequences of using a lot of this. Is it capable of a glycation reaction? Dunno. Of the four options here, I'd probably pick erythritol or stevia, though in real life I mostly use Splenda.

[treonsverdery]

xylitol actually reduces cavities, makes bones stronger, minimizes ear infections
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol

then again, sucralose is 300 times sweeter than sucrose so if you prefer no effect (other than possible sweetness priming effects on metabolism) splenda tastes yummy.

I think someone could make a sweet version of the beneficial 4 amino acid peptide AEDG just with aspartame (two more amino acids, wikipedia says Aspartame is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide) attached to it. AEDG reduces disease as well as gives longevity

tetrapeptide Epitalon^®(Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly) dissolved in 0.1 ml saline. There were 54 mice in each group. The results of this study show that treatment with Epitalon did not influence food consumption, body weight or mean life span of mice. However, it slowed down the age-related switching-off of estrous function and decreased the frequency of chromosome aberrations in bone marrow cells (by 17.1%, P < 0.05). It also increased by 13.3% the life span of the last 10% of the survivors (P < 0.01) and by 12.3% the maximum life span in comparison with the control group.

AEDG is also known as epitalon, here is an article about how it promotes longevity http://www.springerl...2q18426537g0p6/

Edited by treonsverdery, 08 February 2012 - 10:31 PM.

[Logan]

The darkest honeys-whildflower and buckwheat
Xylitol
Erythritol
Stevia
Coconut palm sugar/nectar/raw crystals
Agave Inulin-different than the agave syrup crap
Organin dark maple syrup

I suggest doing some searches for sugar substitutes/alternatives on Mark's Daily Apple. He does a good job of breaking things down and backing it up with fairly convincing research.

[treonsverdery]

I just made a video to persuade the Chinese to create a new artificial longevity sweetener

[TheKidInside]

raw honey or bust

[Luminosity]

Not fond of agave nectar. Raw and cooked honey have different properties but they are both reasonable choices. I don't think artificial sweeteners are good for you. You should probably even avoid Stevia, which doesn't taste great to me anyway.

I think that limiting sweets is best. Avoid corn syrup. Sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, honey, good maple syrup (which doesn't taste like formaldehyde or alcohol), and palm sugar, are reasonable choices. There are other natural sugars, dates, date sugar. They are all fine. Eating greens and drinking plain green tea will reduce your sweet cravings, if any. Eating a sugar free breakfast most days is a good idea.

[niner]

I heard recently that maple syrup is very high in fructose. Too bad, since it's so yummy. Isn't honey just more sugar? Seems to me your choices are either artificial sweeteners/stevia, sugar alcohols, or sugar in its myriad forms. Of the various forms of sugar, I suppose whichever has the least fructose is probably the best of a bad lot. Not sure which one that would be, though.

[Googoltarian]

I suppose whichever has the least fructose is probably the best of a bad lot. Not sure which one that would be, though.

Pure glucose?

Xylitol would be very nice if it did not cause laxative effect in some people. Erythritol according to wikipedia does not have that effect.

[Now]

Maybe you can try autosuggestion.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of sugar substitutes by the way.

[MateuszMoore]

Hi there I think raw sugar is a best sweetener.

Raw sugar is regular sugar which is less processed, which means it has a small amount of what would become molasses if it were separated out.

[Cephalon]

^ As you said, raw sugar basically is sugar.
Nobody should eat (regular - sucrose) sugar.
Not brown not white.
Fructose and glucose are just as bad.
Anyone intersted in life extension should use a sugar substitute.
While I do not like it's taste Stevia seems to be one of the healthiest substitutes on the market. Pure succralose (in Splenda, besides lactose) and xylitol appear to be good sugar alternatives as well. In Germany and some other EU countries only aspartame, saccharine, thaumatin, sodium cylamate and xylitol are sold for use in foods and drinks as far as I know.

[smithx]

Actually, artificial and non-caloric sweeteners may be very bad for you indeed.

http://www.foodconsu...0131120943.html

Gardener et al. examined the association between both diet and regular soft drink consumption and risk of stroke, myocardial infarction (or heart attack), and vascular death based on data on 2,564 participants in the NIH-funded Northern Manhattan Study, which was intended to determine stroke incidence, risk factors and prognosis in a multi-ethnic urban population.

Specifically, the researchers looked at how often study participants drank soft drinks - diet and regular - and the number of vascular events that occurred during a ten-year period.

They found those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event than those who drank none, after taking into account other risk factors including metabolic syndrome, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Also, eating non-caloric sweeteners may fool the body into not responding to real sugars as having calories, thus causing weight gain:

http://www.medicalne...icles/96849.php

A study by scientists in the US suggests that eating artificial sweeteners could make people put on weight because experiments on laboratory rats showed that those eating food sweetened with artificial sweeteners ate more calories than their counterparts whose food was sweetened with normal sugar.

The authors suggest that a sweet taste may cause animals to anticipate the calorie content of food, and eating artificial sweeteners with little or no calories undermines this connection, leading to energy imbalance by increasing food intake or reducing energy expenditure.

They conducted three sets of experiments on adult male laboratory rats who were put in two groups. One group was given yogurt sweetened with glucose (equivalent to table sugar, containing 15 calories a teaspoon), and the other group was given yogurt sweetened with zero-calorie saccharin.

The rats that had the saccharin-sweetened yogurt consumed more calories, put on more weight, gained more body fat, and did not cut back on their calorie consumption in the longer term.

So unfortunately, the best policy is to eat only small amounts of sweets, or to avoid sweets entirely.

[hivemind]

Edited by hivemind, 16 February 2012 - 10:03 PM.

[hivemind]

Saccharin is probably harmless. Stevia has caused some DNA damage in a test tube, but it's harmless in the real world. Stevia has relatively low ADI though.

[Cephalon]

@smithx
I agree, of course the best plan is to avoid sweets entirely. Though if chosing to eat just a few sweets, or drinking just a few sweetend drinks one should choose calorie free sugar substitutes still.
I see there are some speculations about potential health hazards associated with use of sweeteners, but as far as I see those objections are overruled by the known hazards of sucrose/fructose/glucose consumption.
Regarding your first quote:
It would be interesting to know the % of those who suffered a vascular event drinking regular sugar sweetened soft drinks. Also there was not a 43% increase in vascular events, but an increased likelyhood of such events after taking account other risk factors (diabetes, high blood pressure and metabolic syndrom.) So compared to regular soft drinks which will most likely elevate risks for diabetes, blood pressure and metabolic syndrom a lot further than sweetened drinks, if they do so at all, sweetened drinks will most likely have the lower % likelyhood of cardiovascular events.
Regarding your second quote:
I never use plain sugar, but artifical sweetener whenever I would sweeten desserts or drinks and I live on a calorie restricted diet without beeing more hungry than on a regular diet.
So I use sweetener, consume less calories, put on less weight, gain less body fat and do cut back on calorie consumption in the longer term.

I do not want to say that artifical sweeteners are harmless, and there certainly are some that are worse than others, but none of them has the hazarderous effects sugar has on aging.
I'm not a diet radical or something, but I guess the damaging effects of sugar to cell proteins and lipids as well as the infavourable effects on the insulin system are well known.
You could see sugar as something like a pharmaceutical drug, that directly influences your cell signaling etc.
Some even go so far and compare sugar to addictive drugs, showing parallels to common reward systems that are triggered by recreational used drugs such as opioids, but I do not know in how far that is just pop science.

Edited by Cephalon, 16 February 2012 - 10:40 PM.

[niner]

They found those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event than those who drank none, after taking into account other risk factors including metabolic syndrome, diabetes and high blood pressure.

This still sounds like a loose control. What kind of people drink diet soft drinks daily? (hmm. I did, once upon a time. Guess I'm screwed...) Anyway, there is probably a difference in these populations that isn't being controlled for. Maybe the diet drinkers have more type A personalities among them.

[protoject]

How about GLYCINE?

[TheKidInside]

http://supernutritio...s-side-effects/

[Mind]

What are the arguments against Stevia? I see some people making some vague statements that Stevia is bad. I haven't found anything in the literature to suggest this conclusion. I use stevia right now as my main artificial sweetener but I don't have a horse in this race. I would use saccharin or xylitol as my second choices. For using real sugar in baking or treats I would prefer molasses or dark varieties of honey. These do impart significant flavor though. You just can't get around real sugar if you are going to have a real treat. I just keep the treats to a minimum. It is hard to do considering how addictive carbs and sugar are.

[TheKidInside]

I don't consider it personally a necessity to have a treat so I just stay away from "sugar" in any shape really. I think Stevia is probably the best however as I've read many negative things about Agave which is what I've used sometimes for hot cereals in the past.

[lucid]

I vote xylitol.
- Doesn't trigger insulin (not sure if it can still cause insulin resistance like fructose which also doesnt trigger insulin)
- Great for your teeth.
- Sweeter than sugar (40% of the calories)
- Can cause a little gas until you adjust to it

[APBT]

I vote xylitol.
- Doesn't trigger insulin (not sure if it can still cause insulin resistance like fructose which also doesnt trigger insulin)
- Great for your teeth.
- Sweeter than sugar (40% of the calories)
- Can cause a little gas until you adjust to it

A rat study indicating insulin-sensitizing effects of xylitol.
http://www.springerl...82mt42m2g61045/

[TheFountain]

What ever happened to trehalose? There was a discussion about it a while back, then it faded into obscurity again. It seemed to have the benefit of affecting autophagy somehow.

[treonsverdery]

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/20477758

trehalose makes c elegans live a third to over a half longer
Trehalose is a disaccharide of glucose found in diverse organisms and is suggested to act as a stress protectant against heat, cold, desiccation, anoxia, and oxidation. Here, we demonstrate that treatment of Caenorhabditis elegans with trehalose starting from the young-adult stage extended the mean life span by over 30% without any side effects. Surprisingly, trehalose treatment starting even from the old-adult stage shortly thereafter retarded the age-associated decline in survivorship and extended the remaining life span by 60%. Demographic analyses of age-specific mortality rates revealed that trehalose extended the life span by lowering age-independent vulnerability. Moreover, trehalose increased the reproductive span and retarded the age-associated decrease in pharyngeal-pumping rate and the accumulation of lipofuscin autofluorescence. Trehalose also enhanced thermotolerance and reduced polyglutamine aggregation. These results suggest that trehalose suppressed aging by counteracting internal or external stresses that disrupt protein homeostasis. On the other hand, the life span-extending effect of trehalose was abolished in long-lived insulin/IGF-1-like receptor (daf-2) mutants. RNA interference-mediated inactivation of the trehalose-biosynthesis genes trehalose-6-phosphate synthase-1 (tps-1) and tps-2, which are known to be up-regulated in daf-2 mutants, decreased the daf-2 life span. These findings indicate that a reduction in insulin/IGF-1-like signaling extends life span, at least in part, through the aging-suppressor function of trehalose. Trehalose may be a lead compound for potential nutraceutical intervention of the aging process.


anyway just as splenda is chlorosucrose, halogenated sugar, where the chlorine atoms effect receptors more strongly to cause sweeter flavor there is the possibility of making halotrehalose, which might be much sweeter than sugar. If the c elegans longevity effect is a result of nonutritive receptor activity halotrehalose like chlorotrehalose or bromotrehalose or fluorotrehalose may be a new longevity drug. I wonder what chloroxylitol tastes like.

many researchers might think that the longevity effect of trehalose is from its water modulation effect, it permits things like the resuurection plant to be dried then revived as well as is a cryopreservative. its possible there is a receptor effect as well.




amazon.com has numerous trehalose suppliers one at 3 or 4 us$ per lb http://www.amazon.co...words=trehalose

Edited by treonsverdery, 03 May 2012 - 12:44 AM.

[smithx]

trehalose makes c elegans live a third to over a half longer

I wouldn't generalize to humans from a simple worm in this case. They metabolize trehalose very differently from us.

Apparently, in humans trehalose is converted to glucose in the small intenstine:
http://www.sciencedi...27869150200011X

So eatling trelhalose would be expected to have similar blood-sugar effects to glucose, although probably slower.

[PGN]

I vote xylitol.
- Doesn't trigger insulin (not sure if it can still cause insulin resistance like fructose which also doesnt trigger insulin)
- Great for your teeth.
- Sweeter than sugar (40% of the calories)
- Can cause a little gas until you adjust to it

I have to agree, overall, if you HAVE to use sweetener, xylitol is the best as far as taste and benefits. There are studies that it prevents dental caries and a rat study suggested some benefits for collagen production. It is expensive however. Forces you to use less. The diarrhea effect goes away after you have been on it for a few weeks. Just build up your consumption slowly. Personally, I don't like a lot of sweets anymore. Since giving up "real" sugar, my cravings are way down. I used to crave cake with frosting all the time. Now, I don't eat any cake/cookies/candy. Those things taste too sweet to me. The enjoyment factor is not there. The only sweetener I use is xylitol for my coffee. You can bake and cook with it too.

[treonsverdery]

I saw the sweet protein thaumatin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaumatin at a European product. I tried to notice the flavor but it was at a flavored energy(?) drink powder with amino acids, magnesium, as well as glycorhizzic acid. Anyway, wikipedia notes it is thousands of times sweeter than sugar. It is available as a powder plant extract as well. monellin is another peptide sweetener(although so is aspartame, kind of.) The thaumatin peptide has been engineered to be bacterially produced as well as plant sourced.


so, just to bring even more content to this idea, Scientists are still measuring the effect of artificial sweeteners on insulin release http://www.livestron...drinks-insulin/ which causes carbohydrates to turn to fats. so a most physiologically beneficial sweetener would be one that tasted sweet yet actually downregulated insulin release or was insulin neutral. Perhaps they could test a few dozen of these sugar alternatives to see if any of them are also neutral regarding insulin release. I feel certain thaumatin could be reenginered as a peptide to be even more rapidly digested, possibly minimizing physiological effects.


just as a kind of bizarre histrionic aside They need to get this right. I really like sweet foods, I was horrified when I ate some candy where the surface smooth coating lacked flavor n sweetness marvelousness. I was like, "im gonna go to the computer lab n write the maker of that stuff n tell em to put sucralose at the carnauba wax they use during panning, so the surface contact is also sweet" I was reading a candy industry magazine at the time though so it was sort of around the area.

Edited by treonsverdery, 25 May 2012 - 10:27 PM.

[eon]

I use glucose for now. It is natural and is supposed to be easily utilize by the body. Sounds better than table white sugar or the brown sugar I was using called Demerara. I've looked into stevia and now xylitol. Someone on amazon who gave a review for a xylitol product said the manufacturing process of it is another issue. I believe it was a xylitol-based toothpaste, since xylitol is said to be good for teeth but it could also be the xylitol sweetener. But then again other ingredients of a toothpaste are another story. The reviewer was probably from a stevia lobbyist office who do not want xylitol to replace stevia. Not sure how someone would know the "exact" manufacturing process of xylitol.

Xylitol is deadly to dogs as well, from what I have read. So if it kills dogs and other animals what could it do to humans? Maybe it's only good in tiny amounts like in chewing gum but not by the teaspoon? Most of the xylitol or any products in mass markets are usually Chinese made, not that anything is wrong with it. There is also a difference between corn and birch derived xylitol from what I understand, avoid corn-based!

Edited by eon, 11 January 2014 - 08:50 AM.

[nupi]

Xylitol is deadly to dogs as well, from what I have read. So if it kills dogs and other animals what could it do to humans? Maybe it's only good in tiny amounts like in chewing gum but not by the teaspoon? Most of the xylitol or any products in mass markets are usually Chinese made, not that anything is wrong with it. There is also a difference between corn and birch derived xylitol from what I understand, avoid corn-based!

Dogs have fairly different metabolism to us (cocoa is also deadly to them, for one). I stick with Xylitol (for most stuff) and Stevia (in tea when I want to avoid any calories)

Edited by nupi, 11 January 2014 - 11:14 AM.