International experts defend the benefits of sweeteners

Madrid .- A group of more than 60 international experts published in the scientific journal Nutrients the first Ibero-American Consensus on low-calorie sweeteners or without, which defends that its consumption is safe and particularly beneficial for patients diabetics

And also for weight control programs, as well as for dental health, according to the published paper, the Foundation for Nutritional Research (FIN) reported today.

The research was conducted with the support of 43 international organizations and foundations of food, nutrition, dietetics and medicine, as well as universities and other centers.

The main objective of this document, emphasizes one of its promoters, the Spanish professor Lluís Serra-Majem, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health and President of the FIN, is "to provide useful information and based on scientific evidence to contribute to the reduction of sumo of added sugars from food and beverages. "

The goal is in line with the recommendations proposed by public health authorities, adds Serra-Majem, also director of the Institute of Biomedical Research and Health of the Spanish University Among the conclusions of this consensus, experts emphasize the safety of low-calorie sweeteners or lack them, carefully reviewed and approved, and which has been authorized by the health regulatory agencies of the province of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

. all over the world, such as WHO, US authorities (FDA) or European authorities (EFSA).

This type of sweetener is a food additive used for over a century by consumers around the world to retain the sweet taste of food, but without adding the energy of sugars, indicates the END in the statement.

"Recent systematic reviews and meta-badysis has evaluated and confirmed the benefits of this type of sweetener in diabetic patients for their contribution to improving glycemic control, when they are used to replace sugars, "says Hugo Laviada, Mexican doctor at the Marist University of Merida, Mexico.

In the note, Susana Socolovsky, Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine Association of Food Technologists, stresses: "The goal is that the consumer is always properly informed and can recognize the"

This first Ibero-American Consensus contains the conclusions of a meeting organized a year ago in Lisbon, organized by FIN, during which 67 experts in nutrition and dietetics, endocrinology, public health, physical activity and sports, pediatrics, nursing care drugs, toxicology and food law. EFE