For years, fitness experts have declared sugar as the villain.

So consumers switched.

Artificial sweeteners took off in India in the mid-2010s, driven by rising diabetes rates as well as people wanting to become fitter.

Now, Indian consumers are consuming sugar-free biscuits, sugar-free cookies and even diet sodas.

However, recent research suggests that these compounds might be harming our gut microbiome and impacting insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular health.

So what’s the verdict? Are artificial sweeteners better for you, or are we just switching one problem with another?

Hear from consumers and experts on this in the latest episode of The Signal Brief.

The Core produces The Signal Brief. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

NOTE: A machine transcribed this episode. A human has looked at this text but there might still be errors. Please refer to the audio above, if you need to clarify something. If you want to give us feedback, please write to us at feedback@thecore.in.

TRANSCRIPT:

Kudrat (Host): In the 1980s, fitness experts in the West declared fat as the enemy.

They told everyone to cut fat and load up on carbohydrates.

So, companies flooded the market with low-fat cookies, low-fat chips, and low-fat everything.

Clip: Kelloggs Low Fat Granola Bars ad from 1990

Kudrat (Host): Then, in the early 2000s, we went all-in on low-carb. The Atkins diet became a sensation, we started avoiding bread, rice, and pasta like the plague.

Then came the 2010s, a new fad every year.

Paleo told us to eat like our ancestors.

Keto pushed us to burn fat instead of carbs.

Gluten-free went mainstream.

Soon, plant-based and superfood diets took over Instagram.

We tried intermittent fasting, bulletproof coffee, and zero-oil cooking.

Every few years, a new villain and a new hero emerged.

And now, in our era of spiking blood sugar worries, sugar is the ultimate modern culprit.

Companies are aggressively pushing artificial sweeteners and sugar-free products as the smarter, healthier alternative. Especially in India, the diabetes capital of the world.

People are switching in huge numbers. To zero-sugar colas, sugar-free biscuits, sweets, and even sugar-free snacks for children. New brands are launching every month.

India's sugar substitutes and low-calorie sweetener market is booming, with projections showing significant growth toward multi-billion figures by 2034.

But after watching so many health fads come and go…

Are artificial sweeteners really saving us or are we repeating the same mistake yet again?

My name is Kudrat Wadhwa and you’re listening to The Signal Brief. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we bring you deep dives into the how and why of consumer trends.

In today’s episode, can we trick the body into enjoying sugar without paying the price?

Kudrat (Host): Let’s meet someone whose story feels very familiar.

Kunal, a 36-year old who works in manufacturing, told me he has fond memories of drinking soda as a kid.

Kunal: So as a kid, I would always have Coke or Pepsi because I was born and brought up in Delhi. During the peak summer months, such as the ones that we have now, when you get back from school, you need something to cool you down. And back in my time, the buses never had air conditioners. Our schools also never had air conditioners. So we were really feeling hot. It was either Rooh Afza or lemonade or maybe a soda. Back then, I was not too conscious about sugar. I mean, nobody was. So I would have a glass of Coke or something.

Kudrat (Host): But, as he grew older, he realised his habit was unhealthy.

Kunal: But as I grew older, post my engineering particularly, I realised the importance of fitness. I got into fitness and I realised that one should not drink their calories. Since then, I started shifting to the diet variant of sodas. More so, I travel a lot internationally as well, be it Europe or South America or even the Middle East. And I saw that a lot of people just have a lot of diet soda. Since then, I got the validation that diet sodas are the way to be. And I opt for one very frequently.

Kudrat (Host): Kunal told me that these days, he drinks about two to three cans a week.

He’s even begun rationing it, so he often splits it with his partner.

He doesn’t want to give it up completely, because well, he likes the taste and because he says it helps him digest a heavy meal.

Kunal’s trajectory is one many of us are likely familiar with.

I too remember drinking those glass bottles of Coke in hot summers and Pepsi at birthday parties as a kid.

But sugar, even in what we might consider a small amount, can be harmful.

Here’s Mumbai-based nutritionist Niti Desai talking about how big India’s sugar problem really is. Niti also serves as the Vice President of the  Association of Diabetes Educators.

Niti Desai: I think there are a couple of important points to make. One is that, yes, when we talk about sugar in terms of white sugar, and that's how a layperson understands it. For a layperson, sugar means basically table sugar or refined white sugar. That consumption also, for Indians, is high. In fact, studies have shown that the intake is ranging between 45 to 55 grams per day. The WHO recommendation is less than 25 grams per day. So we are almost consuming double the recommended amount of white sugar. So we have a problem here.

The second problem, which I think is a bigger challenge, is that we as a nation just love our carbs. We are a carb-loving nation. Whether we go north or south or east or west, we are just eating a lot of carbs.

Many studies have shown that, and even the most recent ICMR India study, which was published in Nature, has told us that the Indian diet is characterised by a high intake of low-quality carbohydrates. So this is double trouble, because all the refined carbohydrates basically get converted to sugar in the body. So it's never only about white sugar, it's also about the refined carbs that we eat. Be it white rice, maida items, butter biscuits, curry biscuits, all of this gets converted to sugar in the body. So there is a tremendous carb load in the Indian diet, and that's one of the reasons why we have such large numbers of people with diabetes in the country.

Kudrat (Host): In fact, experts call India the diabetes capital of the world. India has over 100 million diabetics, and many more pre-diabetics.

Here’s how diabetes works: When we constantly flood our body with sugar and refined carbs—white rice, maida, biscuits, bread—our cells eventually stop responding to insulin.

Over time, blood sugar stays high, leading to type 2 diabetes. That, in turn, can cause heart disease, kidney damage, nerve problems, vision loss, and a host of other complications.

Even “natural” sweeteners like honey, jaggery, and dates raise blood sugar almost the same way as table sugar. They do contain some vitamins, minerals and fibre, but they are not free passes.

Given all this, consumers wanted an escape hatch. A way to enjoy sweetness without the metabolic cost.

And that’s where artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners entered the picture.

Scientists first discovered saccharin back in 1879, with aspartame and sucralose arriving decades later. In the West, they surged in popularity during the obesity battles of the 80s and 90s. In India, the shift accelerated after 2015, as fitness awareness spread and diabetes numbers climbed.

Today, almost every big FMCG company has a sugar-free or zero-sugar line.

Clip: Sugar Free Natura | Smartness Waali Sweetness

Rohan Sehgal:  From a sugar spike perspective, none of them give any sugar spikes. From that perspective, it's totally fine.

Kudrat (Host): That was influencer Rohan Sehgal, his videos on sugar spikes get over 25 million views a month.

Rohan Sehgal: The only thing is preparation. Aspartame and all, they are just chemicals that essentially trick our brain into believing that it's sweet, but it's actually not sweet. Now, to that extent, sometimes there is an impact. Sometimes there's an opposite impact. Sometimes what I've seen happen is that you have artificial sweeteners and that ends up reducing blood sugar a little bit because the body feels that something is coming in and then it releases insulin to take that sugar out. But there's nothing coming in, so it drops blood sugar.

Kudrat (Host): So, non-nutritive sweeteners don’t impact blood sugar, and as Rohan said, some even report a drop after consuming them..

Several organisations have conducted safety experiments on them, and have given them the go-ahead.

Niti Desai: So when we talk about the safety margin of these sweeteners, that has been studied for years. For example, sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose and now stevia have been studied extensively from the safety point of view, and they have all passed the safety test.

In fact, some of these sweeteners, for example sucralose and stevia have even been allowed to be used in pregnancy, which means that they have a very high safety margin.

However, with this subject being studied more and more, current research has flagged certain concerns in the sense that non-nutritive sweeteners do disturb the gut microbiome. And as we know, the microbes in our gut seem to regulate our body. They seem to be playing a big role in all our organ systems, what they call the gut-brain axis.

Kudrat (Host): One widely discussed study from researchers at the Weizmann Institute even found that mice developed diabetes by consuming artificial sweeteners not because of a rise in blood sugar but because of how it affected their gut bacteria.

Clip: Are artificial sweeteners harming your gut? | Dr. Eran Elinav and Prof. Tim Spector

Kudrat (Host): Researchers are now investigating whether artificial sweeteners may affect the human body in other, more complicated ways than previously understood.

Some studies have raised concerns around insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular health, particularly with sweeteners like erythritol.

Niti Desai:  They are in fact even messing up insulin metabolism in the sense that when you give your body a sweet taste without the caloric intake, the body is confused. So there is insulin dysregulation, is what they are saying.

Unfortunately, sweeteners were in the clear, but there is more and more evidence that we need to be more careful, and it's not a free food in that sense.

In fact, one of the sweeteners, the sugar alcohol erythritol, was flagged a couple of years ago and made big news because perhaps the use of erythritol can also increase your incidence of cardiovascular events, whether you call it a heart attack or stroke.

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol which is very commonly used in a lot of bakery products, even in chewing gums. So it is actually quite all-pervasive.

Kudrat (Host): Now to be clear, scientists are still debating how strongly these findings apply to humans. Even regulators across the world aren’t aligned on how they see these products.

Niti Desai: For example, even amongst the regulatory bodies, WHO says that non-nutritive sweeteners should not be part of long-term weight loss efforts.

The American Diabetes Association says it has not put a ban on them, but it says it's best to use other beverages and water instead of non-nutritive sweetened beverages.

And the FDA says that you can use non-nutritive sweeteners.

So that just gives you an idea of how complex this field is in the sense that even the biggest regulatory bodies have differing opinions at this point.

Kudrat (Host): So what does all this mean for consumers?

Most experts agree on one thing: Artificial sweeteners likely cause less harm than excessive sugar consumption, particularly for diabetics and people struggling with obesity.

But they also warn against treating them like a magic loophole.

Niti Desai:  But for a layperson, what is the message we need to give? One is that you do not need to panic. It is not scandalous. You don't need to make a big hue and cry about this. It's not a complete no-no.

But at the same time, this is not your weapon to cut down calories and feel good. Or if you think that you can have loads of this and your sugar won't spike, so you're okay. Moderation is the key.

Two a day, even for a normal person, would not be considered safe. Even with natural sugar, that would not be considered safe because one can of a fizzy drink is almost 10 to 11 teaspoons of sugar. So that is also not normal. And even doing two cans of diet drink is also not normal.

When we say moderation, well, if you're having two cups of tea or coffee in a day and you want to add a sweetener to it, that works. You want to have dessert a couple of times a week and you want to make your kheer or loki ka halwa or even bake a cake with the sweetener, that's fine. You want to have a couple of cans of diet drink in a week, that would be moderation.

Kudrat (Host): So moderation is key.

And what about those who say they’d rather just stick to white sugar? Are there any benefits to being closer to nature?

Niti Desai: There are absolutely no benefits because, number one, the human body does not need white sugar. Period.

White sugar is in our diet only for taste. As I explained to you, all carbs get converted to sugar in the body, and the body has an excellent mechanism to convert all carbs to sugar. So we do not need white sugar. Period.

It is absolutely for the sake of taste. But the copious amount of sugar that is there in a 330 ml can of fizzy drink is unreal. It's 10 to 11 teaspoons.

So you cannot justify that because the WHO guidelines say we need to limit our sugar intake to less than 25 grams per day, which is five teaspoons a day.

And the kind of sugar spike that will happen, even if you're a normal person, and occasionally if you had a regular can, it doesn't matter.

But if you think you can justify having one can every day, no, not really.

Also, there is the issue of dental caries.

And lastly, the phosphates in these diet drinks actually leach calcium from your bones.

So there are too many nos.

But again, occasionally, like in this scorching heat, if you want to have a couple of cans a week, fine. Especially if weight is not your problem, sugars are not your problem, you're a young person, you're burning out your calories, you are exercising, of course go for it.

But you cannot justify it. It still remains not a great choice.

Kudrat (Host): We’ve been here before, chasing one dietary villain after another. First fat, then carbs, now sugar.

Artificial sweeteners may be a better option than excessive sugar, but they are far from innocent. The real solution isn’t switching from one to the other. It’s breaking our deep addiction to intense sweetness itself.

Outro: That's all for today. You just heard The Signal Brief. We don't do hot takes. Instead, we bring you deep dives into the how and why of consumer trends. The Core produces The Signal Brief. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in.

If you have feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at feedback@thecore.in or you can write to me personally at kudrat@thecore.in.

Thank you for listening.