Erythritol: understanding the recent study
A recent study from scientists at the Cleveland Clinic entitled, The Artificial Sweetener Erythritol and Cardiovascular Event Risk, has led to confusion and fear over the safety of erythritol and other sugar alternatives.
Let’s break it down.
Here are some of the major caveats of this study you should note:
- The authors only included individuals who were already at increased risk for adverse cardiovascular events.
- The authors did not control for overall diet, physical activity and other important factors that are known to be associated with cardiovascular disease risk.
- Several aspects of this study were in vitro (describes medical procedures, tests, and experiments that researchers perform outside of a living organism in a controlled environment, such as a test tube or petri dish) which can provide us with information, but do not necessarily mean they translate into the same effects in humans as seen in the laboratory.
- To test their findings from the first part of the study the authors had 8 individuals consume 30 g of erythritol dissolved in 300 ml water within 2 minutes. As most commercial products containing erythritol usually contain a very small amount this does not reflect a typical real-world serving.
- The authors incorrectly referred to erythritol as an artificial sweetener. While erythritol may be commercially produced from glucose, it exists naturally in a variety of fruits and fermented foods.
- Humans produce erythritol naturally in the body; it's unclear what proportions of erythritol blood levels were from consumption versus the body's natural metabolic processes.
Everly Drink Mixes contain less than 1 gram of erythritol per serving. While we agree that more investigation into erythritol is certainly warranted, we do not plan on changing our formula unless more conclusive study is done.
In fact, several studies with more reliable sample sizes have shown that erythritol is not only safe but has some health benefits – including positive effects associated with reducing cardiovascular disease, improving oral health and has no effect on blood glucose levels.
Please feel free to share your concerns and feedback with us. Would you like to see us use a different natural sugar alternative for future products?
Let us know! Send an email to Everly Customer Service