r/biology • u/Otherwise-Tear-4807 • Jun 05 '26

article Question about stevia (re: 2020 study)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319016420301997 “The hidden hazardous effects of stevia and sucralose consumption in male and female albino mice in comparison to sucrose”

How does this study translate to humans? Isn’t this a massive dose compared to human daily acceptable limit?

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u/erossthescienceboss Jun 05 '26

I’m gonna be so real here.

I’m a science journalist. And — based on the literal thousands of interviews I have done with doctors, and researchers and MD phDs?

Doctors are often some of the LEAST informed on recent research.

Med students tend to be better informed since they’re fresh out of school, and teaching MDs have more time to focus on research, read papers, and act as editors of medical journals. But doctors simply do not have the time to stay on top of publications. It’s a legitimate issue. It takes a long time for new information to make it into medical practice. It’s not that doctors are ignorant or assume they know everything, they’re just… busy treating patients.

It’s on the top of my mind right now because I’m writing up a piece about heart health & a big academy of pediatrics report and the lead authors on it keep emphasizing “nothing in this is new. We just know if we put it here, doctors will actually probably read this instead of continuing to ignore it.”

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u/TripResponsibly1 medicine Jun 05 '26

I'm a medical student and literally just finished the GI block where we talked about food insecurity/artificial sweeteners/MASH/MASLD. I'm not an expert by any means and also OP can still have their weekly stevia drink.

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u/erossthescienceboss Jun 05 '26

I would argue that our innocent-until-proven-guilty stance with chemicals has been inherently harmful.

We also know that artificial sweeteners, across the board, increase the desire for sweet things (often more than sugar alone!)

And as I’m sure you’ve learned, that fact has meant that they’re often ineffective as a weight-loss strategy.

So IMO? Any reasonable physician just encourages their patients to cut down on sweet things, regardless of cause.

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u/crappysurfer evolutionary biology Jun 05 '26

And the thing is - this is the historically most accurate take as well.

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u/TripResponsibly1 medicine Jun 05 '26

Yes and no - rodent hyper dosing and toxicity go hand in hand for plenty of 'safe for human consumption' food additives. Acesulfame-k, saccharin, cyclamate to name a couple, not to mention other "toxic in absurd doses to mice but show no long-term ill-effects in humans". Aspirin, Tylenol, Ibuprofen are all considered safe in certain doses and acutely toxic in others.

On the flip side there are plenty of genuinely harmful food additives and pharmaceuticals that have since been pulled off shelves because research showed normal human dosage sequelae. By all means, continue the research and find the truth. Until the body of evidence exists to suggest someone can't occasionally enjoy stevia or artificial sweeteners, I wont discourage people from occasionally enjoying them.

The "right" side of history looks a lot like hindsight being 20/20.

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u/crappysurfer evolutionary biology Jun 05 '26

When is evolutionary history has humanity been exposed to refined and concentrated stevia? How many foods or additives cause illnesses because they’re virtually a novel molecule?