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Seems like everything has artificial sweeteners nowadays. It's a trend that I noticed only in the last couple of years. And not just fizzy drinks like Sprite or Pepsi - which have sugar and sweetener! - but breakfast cereals, yoghurts, ketchup-like sauces... all have "no added sugar" on the package, you dig a bit deeper and they are full of sweeteners.

Chewing gum and other "healthy sweet" products like that have used sweetener for years, and have always had a warning not to take too much, or it'll give you the shits. Clearly bad for your gut or you wouldn't be getting these side effects. Yet here we are, with sweeteners everywhere and getting more pervasive.

I just try to avoid sugar and sweeteners as much as possible. Seems like half the things I add in "My Fitness Pal" have a little orange warning about something :(



> fizzy drinks like Sprite or Pepsi - which have sugar and sweetener

Assuming you're not referring to HFCS (the article mentions "aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame, and acesulfame potassium-k" as the artificial sweeteners), I'm not seeing any artificial sweeteners in those drinks. Sprite has HFCS and Pepsi has HFCS and Sugar.

Sprite:

> CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM CITRATE, SODIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE). [1]

Pepsi:

> CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CARAMEL COLOR, SUGAR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, CAFFEINE, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR [2]

[1] https://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/products/sprite/ori...

[2] http://www.pepsicobeveragefacts.com/Home/Product?formula=350...


> Clearly bad for your gut or you wouldn't be getting these side effects.

That's not how that works. Ifyou eat too much fruit the sugar in that can cause a laxative effect,and the mecahnism is the same as with suga alcohols. The undigested sugar causes osmosis, which floods the gut with water, which causes diarrhea.


There have been studies done where patients were given lots of fruit and it did not cause a laxative effect.

https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/02/23/can-you-eat-too-much-f...

> Seventeen people were made to eat 20 servings a day of fruit. Despite the extraordinarily high fructose content of this diet, presumably about 200 g/d—eight cans of soda worth, the investigators reported no adverse effects (and possible benefit actually) for body weight, blood pressure, and insulin and lipid levels after three to six months.


That article says nothing about a laxative effect.


Exactly.


You failed to provide evidence that fruit exhibits no laxative effect. That study didn't report a laxative effect because it wasn't testing for a laxative effect.


It would have been reported as an adverse effect and it wasn't.


Right, and this isn't "Clearly bad for your gut" how? Nobody is claiming that eating "too much fruit" is good for your gut.


> breakfast cereals, yoghurts, ketchup-like sauces

If you're trying to avoid both sugar and sweeteners, those aren't the kinds of foods you're going to be eating... Unless you're referring to plain oats and plain yoghurt, which surely must be available unsweetened and unadulterated.


I’m always surprised at what people eat when they’re deliberately trying to be healthy. Things like Nutrigrain bars and GoGurt. Really makes me realize what a failure our labeling laws our when both can be sold as anything other than dessert.


> or it'll give you the shits

I believe that's a common side effect of sugar alcohols like xylitol.




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