Food and drinks often use artificial sweeteners as another option to decrease our calorie intake and a way to lessen our cravings for something sweet. These low-carloier sweeteners are often used to sweeten food and drinks for less calories and carbohydrate when they replace sugar. Only a small amount is need when sugar substitutes are used. Most of these substitutes cannot be digested so they provide no extra calories. Five artificial sweeteners that have been tested and approved by FDA include acesulfame potassium, aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, and neotame.
Since we spent a lot of class time talking about the structures of carbohydrates and glycosidic bonds that are formed, I looked into the structure of sucralose, which is often known as Splenda. Looking at the structure of sucralose below, we see some similarities like the many hydroxyl groups and the five and six membered rings with oxygen. The difference is the the three chlorine atoms that might affect how enzymes interact with this substitute to prevent the degradation of this molecule in the body.
I’ve heard people talking about the problems with artificial sweeteners before but always in a vague yet menacing way. After reading your post, I was curious if people have studied specifically how the addition of Cl effects enzyme interactions, and I found a review article that summarizes the biological effects of artificial sweeteners (Schiffman and Rother, 2013). Essentially, they can increase glucose and insulin levels, effect drug uptake in the intestine, change the bacterial profile in the gut, and act as a weak mutagens. Probably not worth it in order to reduce sugar uptake!