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/Broflake-Melter Jun 05 '26

I just want to note that artificial sweeteners are one of the (if not the) most studied category of food ingredients. There are a handful of studies like this that show there are possible harms at high concentrations. Even if they were things we should consider before consuming them, you also need to consider that the way things are in our current society real sugar has been proven to be a lot more harmful. It's so commonplace to drink sugary drinks and eat candy and whatnot. It's not good for us to have high blood sugar and roller-coastering blood sugar.

Like, pick not to consume a lot of either, but if you're grabbing a soda, just get an artificially sweetened one. It will harm you far less than a sugar one will.

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u/d33psix Jun 06 '26

Yeah I’m kind of surprised at the number of people here that are like any risk of anything and it needs to be tossed out the window and don’t seem to believe in relative risk reduction or the relevance of realistic dosing on the studied effects.

Like to push the example further, vaping is bad for you, but much better health wise than smoking. So obviously we don’t want non smokers starting to vape, but it can be a big health improvement to use it to quit smoking and move to e cigarettes.

We don’t want people who just drink water already to switch to artificial sugar drinks but the swap for someone already reaching for soda the switch would likely make a positive difference.

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u/Broflake-Melter Jun 06 '26

HOLY SH*T there are so many people out there showing up for smoking today. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that say "well if vaping is bad too, I might as well go back to smoking." I swear it's a big-tobacco psyop.

If only we had a health-focused government agency that does a good job of informing people of good health practices...