Sucralose, which you may commercially as Splenda.
Sucralose is a sugar substitute that is marketed towards people who are looking to lose weight, as well as watch their blood sugar. Sucralose is a non-nutritive sweetener that is created within a lab during a process in which regular sugar has three hydroxyl groups removed from it. And those three hydroxyl groups are replaced by three chlorine groups. This process is called chlorination and ultimately leaves us with a product that, instead of being regular table sugar, it is now a product that has negligible calories, as well as a taste that is 600 times sweeter than table sugar.
Some people find the taste a little bit bitter. Others really, really enjoy it when it comes to a non-nutritive sweetener or a sugar substitute. People want to know what sugar impact, as well as digestive impact. What is it going to do to my blood sugars? And what is it going to do to my digestive health?
And because sucralose is basically calorie free, it's not quite zero, but it's pretty darn close, and because it has basically zero carbs in it, from a blood sugar standpoint, the majority of people do not tend to have any blood sugar impact when consuming sucralose. However, there is a subset of people that when they consume sucralose, they do experience a small rise in blood sugar. However, the research has also shown that when those people have become more habitual consumers of sucralose, that small blood sugar rise tends to go away.
From a digestive health standpoint, sucralose alters the gut microbiome. So it ultimately alters the bacteria that's in your gut that helps you digest food, as well as do a ton of other processes within the body. And it actually can have the good gut bacteria, which can lead to chronic inflammation, as well as other detrimental health effects.
And in addition to that, sucralose can actually induce some glucose intolerance, which can ultimately lead to higher blood sugars in susceptible populations, such as people living with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. I hope you found this info on sucralose helpful. And if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
