Popular sugar substitutes that accelerate brain aging have been revealed

Sugar substitutes are commonly considered a harmless alternative to sugar — especially when it comes to people with diabetes and excess weight. But a large-scale Brazilian study published in the journal Neurology forces us to look at these substances in an entirely different light: they may accelerate brain aging.

A team of scientists led by Claudia Kimie Suemoto from the University of São Paulo monitored the health of 12,772 adults over eight years — the average age of participants was 52. All were divided into three groups based on total consumption of seven sweeteners: aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame K, erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol, and tagatose. Those who fell into the highest consumption group averaged 191 mg per day, while the lowest group averaged 20 mg.

The results were alarming. Among participants with the highest sweetener consumption, memory, verbal fluency, and processing speed declined 62% faster than among those who consumed these substances the least. Translated into age equivalents, this corresponds to 1.6 additional years of cognitive aging. For the middle group, the figure was 1.3 years. The effect was particularly pronounced in people under 60 and in diabetics — that is, precisely in those who are most often advised to switch to sugar substitutes for medical reasons.

Of the seven substances studied, only tagatose showed no association with cognitive decline. The remaining six — aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame K, erythritol, xylitol, and sorbitol — were found to be associated with memory deterioration.

The study authors make an important caveat: the research is observational in nature and does not prove a direct causal relationship. It is possible that people with already emerging cognitive changes simply switch to diet products more often. However, the impressive sample size, the multi-year observation period, and the consistency of data across most sweeteners lend these findings considerable weight.