Turns out, Stevia brings on heart attacks

 UPDATE - Turns out my liquid Stevia does NOT have Erythritol. It uses water to cut the stevia percentage.

Well, this is not good news. Turns out that stevia and monkfruit products, as well as many low carb foods marketed to people with diabetes are full of a product called Erythritol. This is a naturally occurring substance in fruits that is about 70% as sweet as sugar, but crystallizes the same way so it looks like sugar.

Because stevia products are about 200 - 400 times sweeter than sugar, Erythritol is used to cut the product and make it look more natural.

And, because we can't have nice things, it turns out that Erythritol raises the risk of heart attack, stroke or death within 3 years. Worse is that the researchers weren't even looking at Erythritol. Here is how the scientists discovered this...

Hazen’s research had a simple goal: find unknown chemicals or compounds in a person’s blood that might predict their risk for a heart attack, stroke or death in the next three years. To do so, the team began analyzing 1,157 blood samples in people at risk for heart disease collected between 2004 and 2011.

“We found this substance that seemed to play a big role, but we didn’t know what it was,” Hazen said. “Then we discovered it was erythritol, a sweetener.”

It bums me out because Stevia is used at our home because I was convinced that it was better than other, more "artificial" sweeteners. Nope.

After years and years of Doctors saying watch your sugar, they really should note that any sweetener besides sugar has even worse affects. 

It is funny because the first time I remember super-annoyance from my grandmother was when they outlawed artificial sweetener Cyclamates and hence RC Diet Cola. I actually remember her fuming and saying, "I would have to drink a bathtub of RC to get that many cyclamates!" She was not pleased.

Interestingly Erythritol is bad for you BECAUSE it is overly helpful to your system. When humans have boo-boos, our blood clots at the boo-boo site. Well, this happens internally as well. When there is a tear inside, the blood cells clot as well. Normally the internally clot is the same size as the tear. If you tear a blood vessel by 10% you get a 10% clot.  Erythritol super charges this response. So a 10% tear is given a 90 or 100% clotting effect. These clots can then travel throughout the blood system and cause heart attacks, strokes and death.

Sugar it is.