Non-Nutritive Sweeteners: Breaking the Barriers

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this Special Issue entitled “Non-Nutritive Sweeteners: Breaking the Barriers” is to: 1) investigate the roles of specific types of non-nutritive sweeteners on health, including but not limited to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, weight management, and cancer in human and animal models; 2) assess the impact of non-nutritive sweeteners on health from a clinical trial perspective that spans from animal models and clinical trials in humans, to behavioral/free-living investigations rather than an observational lens; 3) describe changes in dietary intake patterns and appetite in response to consuming non-nutritive sweeteners; and 4) develop dietary assessment methodology that encompasses all sources of non-nutritive sweetener intake to allow for inferential testing of their effects on health and dietary intake.

Non-nutritive sweeteners (NNSs), or artificial sweeteners, are low-calorie sweeteners frequently recommended as a substitute for added sugars to reduce caloric intake and manage blood glucose levels. However, major barriers are present when attempting to determine if non-nutritive sweetener intake is associated with negative health outcomes, thus causing significant controversy. A major source of this controversy comes from the inability of consumers, clinicians, and researchers to determine how much and what types of NNS are consumed. Because it is difficult to ascertain amounts consumed (e.g., due to the various types of NNS available, the thousands of dietary products that contain NNSs, and the milligram quantities in a product not displayed on a label), many investigations rely on the use of diet soda as a proxy of NNS intake. However, the common practice of using diet soda as a proxy has several fatal flaws: 1) This practice overlooks the issue surrounding satiety from liquid vs. solid dietary intake, which could impact cardio-metabolic outcomes. 2) This method significantly underestimates the number of NNS consumers. A recent investigation showed that as many as 30% of people may be incorrectly labeled as non-consumers when only diet soda was used as a proxy. 3) Finally, the assumption that all diet sodas, and thus NNSs, are equivalent draws serious concerns regarding the validity and robustness of previous investigations employing this practice. As each NNS has a distinct chemical profile and metabolic pathway, the impacts of each on health outcomes are likely to differ, and must be assessed individually.

We expect that this Special Issue will add to the literature significantly by inferentially testing the impact of consuming specific types of non-nutritive sweetener on health and dietary intake.

We look forward to receiving your submissions; please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions regarding this Issue.

Thank you and kind regards,

Dr. Valisa Hedrick
Dr. Vasanti S. Malik
Guest Editors

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• Non-nutritive sweeteners
• Artificial sweeteners
• Low-calorie sweeteners
• High-intensity sweeteners
• Sucralose
• Aspartame
• Saccharin
• Stevia
• Neotame
• Acesulfame-potassium
• Diet beverages
• Soft drinks
• Diet
• Nutrition
• Obesity
• Weight management
• Cardiovascular disease
• Appetite
• Diabetes
• Metabolism
• Dietary assessment