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“Splenda is recognized as safe to ingest as a diabetic sugar substitute.” -(wikipedia.org)
But is it really? After one article triggering my curiosity I read more and found a slew of sites proclaiming otherwise.
Get the sweets after the jump…Splenda is a sucrolose based artificial sweetener. Sucralose is a no calorie substitute about 600 times sweeter than regular sugar and twice the sweetness of saccharin. It was ‘discovered’ by scientists in 1976 in the UK, but wasn’t first used by consumers until the early 90’s. According to SplendaKills.co.uk, splenda was actually discovered while scientists were seeking a new pesticide formula. That’s pretty sweet!
Splenda, or sucralose, does not leave our digestive system and comes out the other end like those lovely corn kernel shells everyone wonders about. Only about 11-27% of the sucralose is actually absorbed into our bodies. Another percentage is removed by the kidneys, then urine. The amount that stays depends on the amount consumed. Wikipedia and SplendaKills both speak of bodily harm that comes from too much Splenda consumption. SplendaKills notes that Splenda can shrink the Thymus glands, enlarge liver and kidneys, reduce growth rate, decrease red blood cell count, cause miscarriages, and give you the nasty (diarrhea). Wikipedia, more aptly proclaims that splenda will most likely not shrink your Thymus, but could. It also reads that sucralose could contribute to weight gain and has been reported to trigger migraines.
The real problem is not just within our bodies. The picture is bigger than this and a 17 year old 2009 Intel Science Talent Search finalist is here to tell us. Smitha Ramakrishna (Krishna’s a god; that’s pretty cool) studies water and has done extensive research on the effects of Splenda in the water we drink and shower with. We’ve found out that our bodies don’t break down Splenda; well neither do our wastewater treatment plants. This means that the artificial chlorocarbon sweetener can accumulate in the water supply after we all shart it out, thus potentially posioning the aquatic population.
To my surprise there have actually been several books written about the side effects of Splenda. I wouldn’t recommend checking them out unless you have that much free time, but it’s good to know what we’re drinking, eating, and I guess re-drinking. Mmmm, undigested tap water !!
