Erythritol is one of the most used sweeteners in Europe at the moment, especially by those who follow a reduced carbohydrate or ketogenic diet. The reason is simple: it has an almost zero calorie and carbohydrate intake compared to a sweet taste reminiscent of sugar. In short, it allows those who follow a diet with very few carbohydrates available to eat sweets that they otherwise could not afford.
It is a sweetener naturally present in nature (minimally), a polyalcohol which, not being metabolised by the human body, does not produce energy in practice but sweetens.
A few days ago the news came that a scientific study found a correlation between the intake of erythritol (or rather its presence in the body) and an increased risk of cardiovascular problems (in particular, there was an increased possibility that of thrombi and in general an excessive tendency of the blood to clot but the causal link with other risk factors of the subjects involved in the study needs to be clarified).
It must be said that this is a preliminary study that will surely now be studied in depth but the fact is that, for the first time since erythritol was approved in Europe and the USA, its healthiness is being questioned .
But how? The most popular sweetener by gurus and nutritionists, the one with which they are reformulating all the "keto friendly" and low carb product lines, the one that you read everywhere being the only "truly keto" isn't as perfect as it might seem?
Do you know why it was perfect? Simply because we recently started using it (final European approval in 2008) and studies on long-term effects are few or nil unlike those of other older sweeteners and consequently also more mistreated.
I was born in an era in which aspartame was used quietly and is now accused of being harmful and so, for one reason or another, are all sweeteners with few or zero calories. Sooner or later the flaw is found, it's all a matter of time.
The secret, as in all things, is not to exceed. And with sweeteners it is a moment to go too far also because the mirage of zero calories / zero carbohydrates is the forbidden dream of anyone on a diet to lose weight.
Can these lower calorie/carb substitutes help? Of course, especially if you suffer from serious problems such as diabetes or obesity but for most people replacing sugar with zero sweeteners certainly does not help to get used to the excess of sweetness and then either you continue to (ab)use sweeteners or once the diet is over you go back to sugar and also to the same situation of pre-diet excesses.
My advice? Start using less and less sugar or sweeteners and maybe try to replace them with natural alternatives and (really) without contraindications such as stevia (if you like it), dates , coconut sugar and yacon syrup which sweeten a little less but they are definitely healthier and 100% natural. Get your palate used to less sweet flavors and you will realize that not only carbohydrates and sugar are addictive but also the sweet taste itself.
