{"id":496253,"date":"2026-02-28T20:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496253\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T20:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:57:19","slug":"theres-a-link-between-sugar-substitutes-and-cognitive-decline-heres-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496253\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a Link Between Sugar Substitutes and Cognitive Decline\u2014Here\u2019s What You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

This trend was only apparent in participants under 60 years old, and was especially strong in participants with diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the researchers looked closer at the individual sugar substitutes, they found that higher intake of six of the seven\u2014aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-k, erythritol (the least consumed), sorbitol (the most consumed), and xylitol\u2014was also tied to faster cognitive declines, particularly memory and verbal fluency. Tagatose was the only exception.<\/p>\n

What this means for you<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this study suggests that consuming sugar substitutes over an extended period of time is associated with worse cognitive health<\/a>. Importantly, this association doesn\u2019t necessarily signify that sugar substitutes cause cognitive decline. Rather, it means the two variables are correlated. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean the study is irrelevant, but it\u2019s an important distinction,\u201d Byrne says.<\/p>\n

Hypothesizing a possible explanation for the link between higher sugar substitute intake and accelerated cognitive decline, the researchers posited that sugar substitutes might produce toxic metabolites during digestion<\/a>, which, in turn, have a damaging effect. Basically, the authors are saying this link \u201ccould be because these sweeteners get broken down into other compounds in the body, and those compounds may cause inflammation<\/a> in the brain,\u201d Byrne explains. Fundamentally, she notes, \u201cthe thing about studies like this one, that look at correlations between certain behaviors (in this case, consuming artificial sweeteners) and certain health outcomes, is that it’s impossible to know what the mechanism is.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the study isn\u2019t the first to raise the alarm regarding the impact of sugar substitutes on cognitive function. Previous studies have also found links between both artificially sweetened products (like soft drinks) and individual sugar substitutes (like sucralose and saccharin) and cognitive issues, including reduced memory and executive function and increased dementia risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With all this said, these findings don\u2019t mean that sugar substitutes are bad for you across the board, or that you should try to cut them out entirely. Besides, that would be tough, or even impossible to do, considering how prevalent they are in food and drink products<\/a>, particularly low-calorie ultraprocessed items<\/a> like soda<\/a>, light yogurt, flavored water, and energy drinks<\/a>. Three of the seven sugar substitutes involved in the study\u2014erythritol, sorbitol, and xylitol\u2014belong to a category known as sugar alcohols<\/a>, artificial sweeteners that can be found in sweet treats like candy, ice cream, baked goods, and protein bars (and can cause digestive symptoms<\/a>), for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is drinking several diet sodas or other artificially sweetened things per day, they might take this as a sign to cut back,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think this is a reason for everyone to panic and swear off artificial sweeteners completely if they enjoy them on occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:<\/p>\n

Get more of SELF\u2019s great service journalism delivered right to your inbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This trend was only apparent in participants under 60 years old, and was especially strong in participants with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[4994,1103,97,5003,17150,143004,13201,147220],"class_list":["post-496253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-brain-health","tag-dementia","tag-health","tag-inflammation","tag-memory","tag-processed-food","tag-sugar","tag-sweetener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}