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MBABANE – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has advised against the use of non-sugar sweeteners as they have been discovered to increase the risk of type two diabetes.

The organisation on Monday released new guidelines on non-sugar sweeteners (NSS), which recommends against the use of NSS to control body weight or reduce the risk of no communicable diseases (NCDs).

The recommendations were based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence, which suggested that the use of NSS did not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. Results of the review also suggest that there may be potential undesirable effects from long-term use of NSS, such as an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults.

Guidelines

The guidelines that were presented by WHO Director for Nutrition and Food Safety Francesco Branca, stated that replacing free sugars with NSS did not help with weight control in the long-term. People were advised to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages.

“NSS are not essential dietary factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health.”

The recommendation applied to all people except for individuals with pre-existing diabetes and includes all synthetic and naturally occurring or modified non-nutritive sweeteners that are not classified as sugars found in manufactured foods and beverages, or sold on their own to be added to foods and beverages by consumers.

Recommendation

Worth noting, the recommendation does not apply to personal care and hygiene products containing NSS, such as toothpaste, skin cream, and medications, or to low-calorie sugars and sugar alcohols (polyols), which are sugars or sugar derivatives containing calories and are, therefore, not considered NSS.

The WHO stated, however, that because the link observed in the evidence between NSS and disease outcomes might be confounded by baseline characteristics of study participants and complicated patterns of NSS use, the recommendation has been assessed as conditional, following WHO processes for developing guidelines.

This, therefore, signals that policy decisions based on this recommendation may require substantive discussion in specific country contexts, linked for example to the extent of consumption in different age groups.

Meanwhile, Director of Health Services Dr Velephi Okello mentioned that the use of the products was a personal choice. She said the WHO was there to advise like it did with formula milk for infants.