Popular sugar substitutes linked to faster brain aging

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260717033213.htm

by toomuchtodo • 4 days ago

29 18 4 days ago

Daishiman• 4 days ago

Self-reported dietary information? Then garbage study.

"At the beginning of the study, participants completed detailed food questionnaires describing what they had eaten and drunk during the previous year. "

My goodness.

I almost expect a clause stating that this study was in part funded by the Brazil Sugar Export Consortium...

cure_42• 4 days ago

People who consume more artificial sweeteners are more likely to be people who are trying to cut calories, and people trying to cut calories are more likely to be overweight, and people who are overweight are more likely to experience cognitive decline.

Until a study is done which properly accounts for this well known correlation, I will remain incredibly skeptical that artificial sweeteners have any of these supposed negative effects.

xnx• 4 days ago

Probably correlates with being more sedentary as well. Lack of exercise is disastrous for health.

faangguyindia3• 4 days ago

isn't that easy to fix by simply comparing them to a group who are also overweight and cut calories while still having no artificial suger.

episteme• 4 days ago

I agree that they should control for this, but I’m not sure if this correlation would hold. I suspect people who are healthy weight are commonly staying there partly by their diet containing low calorie versions of some items. Some things like soda are very hard to enjoy in their non-diet form without drinking a huge amount of calories, so I could see an argument for artificial sweeteners potentially being consumed more in weight conscious people.

Youden• 4 days ago

I don't know how you define "properly" but the study did account for this, among many other factors:

"[...] We also investigated whether obesity, diabetes, and a healthy diet, all evaluated in 2 categories (no/yes), modified the association between LNCS consumption and cognitive decline by adding a 3-way interaction among the consumption of LNCS, the timescale, and each modifier on model 2."

In the results section: "[...] obesity and diet did not modify the association between LNCS consumption and cognitive decline [...]"

defensem3ch• 4 days ago

no stevia? i avoid all the other ones

themadturk• 3 days ago

I don't think stevia is classified the same way; it's a natural sweetener with zero calories. I think the others are "artificial" sweeteners.

DivingForGold• 4 days ago

No monkfruit ?

trescenzi• 4 days ago

A large study linked higher consumption of several *artificial* sweeteners to faster declines in memory and thinking skills.

ramy_d• 4 days ago

Where is the study? What constitutes a lot?

ETA: This press release relates to this study published Sept 3rd 2025 https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214023 https://www.naturalnews.com/2025-09-11-toxic-artificial-swee... https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/sugar-substitutes-not-s...

  Adults under 60 who consumed the most artificial sweeteners — averaging 191 milligrams daily — experienced a 62% faster decline in memory and thinking skills compared to low or non-users.

191 milligrams a day would be like two 355ml coke zeros a day according to https://www.coca-cola.com/ca/en/brands/coca-cola/products/co...

faangguyindia3• 4 days ago

I've never relied on sugar free foods, and I consume plenty of natural sugars and easily cut weight on a regular basis.

And often people tell me not to eat "suger" and carbs like "rice". I never listen to them.

People find it hard to lose weight and it's not hard to understand why.

Nothing beats a calorie deficit for weight loss.

Deficit = TDEE (total calorie burn for the day) - calorie intake

Most people go wrong when they diet. These are the reasons I see most often:

a) They try to eat too little. It works in the short term, but within several weeks, they become miserable and bounce back to binge eating, undoing all their progress.

Many people have a TDEE of 2,700 kcal and start eating an 800–1,100 kcal diet for weight loss.

Eating 800–1,500 kcal isn't wrong, but it's more suitable for someone who is an experienced dieter. Beginners, more often than not, will fail with this approach.

b) They don't know the calorie density of foods. Many believe granola is a low calorie, healthy option based purely on their gut feelings about the food and its appearance.

c) Many people are sedentary and have low muscle mass, so their TDEE is quite low. To cut weight, they need to go 400–500 kcal below it, and guess what? They end up miserable because their TDEE is already low, and lowering their intake by 400–500 kcal puts them in a zone with too little food.

The solution is Zone 2 cardio not because it burns more fat, but because it's easy on the joints, and most people can sustain it for hours, resulting in a higher cumulative calorie burn with much less stress on the recovery system.

To throw a monkey wrench into this scheme, oftentimes when you diet down, your body lowers its metabolism (through metabolic adaptation or increased efficiency in physical activities). Other times, people simply move less when they eat at a deficit because they feel low on energy, lowering their TDEE.

Remember, since deficit = TDEE - intake:

If TDEE drops too low, calorie intake must go down to maintain the deficit; otherwise, there will be no weight loss.

I've been working to solve this problem and we've lots of success with maintenance tracking approach.

EPWN3D• 4 days ago

I've never relied on sugar free foods, and I consume plenty of natural sugars and easily cut weight on a regular basis.

I'm guessing you're talking about fruits. In which case, you consume them, but you don't digest them. The sugar in them is bound up with a ton of fiber, and the majority of it never gets digested. That's why dried fruit is so much higher in calories than its source: all the water and fiber is removed.

faangguyindia3• 4 days ago

I eat fruits but i also eat high quality white cane sugar.

newsomix9xl• 3 days ago

Correlation isn't causation, but it does make for the kind of negative sensationalist titles that plague my news feeds.

This is a real problem for the anti sugar low carb people tho'.

I've added dates to my diet.

Fire-Dragon-DoL• 3 days ago

What about stevia? That seems to be the new "fad" of sweeteners

112233• 3 days ago

whoa, "we tested" seven completely different chemicals, one has zero effect, six others have massive negative effects? By what mechanism?

Popular sugar substitutes linked to faster brain aging

Related Stories