Sweeten Your Life with Diabetes Artificial Sweeteners

For diabetes, sugar substitutes or artificial sweeteners are a joy. They offer the sweetness we can find in sugar, in fact, sometimes sweeter than sugar itself, but less the calories. Since they are sweeter than sugar, it may take a lesser amount of sweeteners to sweeten foods.


Patients with diabetes consider artificial sweeteners as “free foods”. They do not affect blood sugar levels and are not counted as fats or carbohydrates. There is one thing to remember though: other ingredients in foods containing artificial sweeteners can still affect your blood sugar levels.

Types of artificial sweeteners

There are 5 types of artificial sweeteners that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration: saccharin, aspartame, neotame, acesulfame postassum and sucralose.

Saccharin is the oldest artificial sweetener that was developed in 1879. It is 200 to 700 times sweeter than sugar and can be used on any food. Early studies found that saccharin caused cancer in rats when taken in large quantities. However, there is no findings that it
can cause cancer in human beings. Some people with diabetes may have already known this one of the artificial sweeteners saccharin, under the brand names Sweet Twin, Sweet N’ Low and Necta Sweet.

Aspartame, also known as Nutrasweet or Equal in brand names, is as sweet as sugar 180 to 200 times. It contains the same amount of calories as sugar but if used to sweeten food, only a small amount of aspartame is needed so it hardly can add to calories at all.

Neotame is sweeter than sugar a thousand times – 7,000 to 13,000 times. Its molecular structure is more or less just like aspartame and was approved in 2002 as a general purpose sweetener. No brand names exist yet that market Neotame so it is rare for people with diabetes to use this artificial sweetener.

Acesulfame potassium, also called acesulfame-K, Sweet One or Sunett, is sweeter than sugar 200 times but with no calories. Unlike aspartame, this is good for baking and cooking. It does not easily break down when heated. It was approved in 1988 as a “tabletop sweetener” and later as a general purpose sweetener in 2003. Acesulfame potassium is often mixed with other artificial sweeteners.

Sucralose is sweeter than sugar 600 times. It is made from natural sugar, however it cannot be digested. It does not have any calories. Sucralose is good for baked goods and cooked foods. Its brand name is called Splenda.