Sucralose is found as a sweetener mainly in calorie-free soft drinks. However, we have summarized here why it is not entirely harmless.
What is sucralose?
Sucralose is a sweetener that tastes 400 to 700 times sweeter than regular table sugar. In contrast to many other sweeteners, sucralose does not have a bitter aftertaste, which is why the beverage industry in particular likes to use it to sweeten its calorie-free lemonades and energy drinks. Sucralose is considered a food additive. Every food manufacturer has to declare it on the packaging with the number E955.
Sucralose may not mean much to you, but you may have heard of the artificial sweetener brand Splenda. The sweetener is available in both powder and tablet form. Splenda contains sucralose, but very little. The tablets consist of 95 percent of the two simple sugars dextrose and maltodextrin, which mainly serve as a filler. Because even a tiny amount of sweetener in the tablet is enough to sweeten a whole cup of coffee, for example.
Sucralose is not a compound found in nature. It is made from sucrose, the common household sugar. Researchers at Queen Elizabeth College of London developed the sweetener in 1976 in a collaborative project with British sugar manufacturer Tate & Lyle, the producer of Splenda. Chemically, sucralose is a chlorinated form of table sugar.
Is sucralose harmful to health or the environment?
Sucralose breaks down slowly in the environment and in sewage treatment plants. The sweetener can remain in groundwater for several years and is now even used in science as an indicator of polluted water. An American study from 2011 was able to detect sucralose in eight of twelve drinking water samples examined.
This is because sucralose cannot be filtered out by sewage treatment plants. 15 of the 19 groundwater samples examined in the study were already contaminated with sucralose. Sweeteners can also be detected in groundwater in Germany. Sucralose has been approved as a sweetener in foods here since 2001.
The specific effects of the sweeteners in our groundwater on the environment have not yet been adequately researched. The low level of sweetener residues in the water are considered harmless to humans. The extent to which this also applies to the animal world is scientifically controversial.
According to the Federal Institute for Risk Research, you should not heat sucralose and products containing sucralose above 120 °Celsius. At higher temperatures, there is a suspicion that harmful dioxins can form. Therefore, never use the sweetener to sweeten baked goods or fried foods, and avoid corresponding industrial products.
However, it has not yet been sufficiently scientifically proven that sucralose is harmful to humans.
What are the side effects of sucralose?
The “safe daily dose” of sucralose is 15 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Consuming more of the sweetener can cause unwanted side effects. Our bodies cannot digest sucralose, so the additive can cause gas and diarrhea.
If you suffer from fructose intolerance, you should completely avoid products with sucralose. A small percentage of the sucralose is converted into 1,6-dichlorofructose by your body. This is a type of fructose that can cause gas, diarrhea, and vomiting in people with fructose intolerance.
Some animal studies indicate that sucralose can alter the intestinal flora. For example, the feces of mice fed sucralose for six months showed increased levels of pro-inflammatory proteins. However, animal experiments cannot simply be extrapolated to humans, and the significance of such studies is scientifically disputed.
It is therefore always better if you act as a precaution and ban sucralose from your diet. You can easily avoid the sweetener by avoiding processed foods. When it comes to lemonade, prefer the version sweetened with conventional sugar. Or better yet, drink a fruit juice. In single-variety fruit juices with 100 percent fruit content, the addition of sweeteners is prohibited by law. Even better for your health – if it has to be something sweet – are juice spritzers.
