Riyadh – Asdaf News:
According to a recent study, a zero-calorie sweetener may be to blame for blood clots and heart attacks.
According to a study that was just released in the journal Nature Medicine, the sugar replacement erythritol, which is frequently included in foods with decreased sugar or ketones, is associated with blood clotting, stroke, heart attacks, and even death.
The greatest blood levels of erythritol were identified in people with preexisting risk factors for heart disease, who had been reported to have a doubled risk for the illnesses.
“The degree of risk was not modest,” said study author Dr. Stanley Hazen, director of the center for cardiovascular diagnostics and prevention at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, CNN reports. “If your blood level of erythritol was in the top 25% compared to the bottom 25%, there was about a two-fold higher risk for heart attack and stroke. It’s on par with the strongest of cardiac risk factors, like diabetes.”
Experts note that while there is a trend, more research is needed to understand the impact of erythritol.
Robert Rankin, executive director of the Calorie Control Council, told the outlet that “the results of this study are contrary to decades of scientific research showing reduced-calorie sweeteners like erythritol are safe, as evidenced by global regulatory permissions for their use in foods and beverages.”
He added that the results “should not be extrapolated to the general population, as the participants in the intervention were already at increased risk for cardiovascular events.”–Yahoo News
