As the cold weather approached I fancied buying some baked beans to have with a hot breakfast. In the past I had bought the ‘reduced salt and sugar’ version from a well known brand of baked beans. Now I find this product is replaced with a ‘no added sugar’ product.
Suspicious as usual, after reading the label I found that it contains the now ubiquitous steviol sweeteners. Now I admit that I am instinctively suspicious of anything that is basically a ragwort-extract but was not really that bothered until a) it was declared ‘safe’ by the food industry, b) a side effect of its consumption were ‘muscle pain’ and c) it now seems to be in every low sugar ( but still sweet) product.
Having had the ‘shades of statins’ bogey re-awakened I did a bit of digging looking for steviols’ effects on mitochondria. Yep, back in 1985 there was clear evidence that the family of stevia glycosides were powerful mitochondrial inhibitors. inducing membrane depolarisation. A few years later I noticed they were being touted as potential chemotherapy compounds for osteo-sarcoma on the grounds of their mitochondrial-mediated apoptotic properties.
You get it, these compounds have profound effect on mitochondria. Basically that effect is to uncouple/depolarise mitochondria. This may be safe in healthy adults who need to lose a bit of weight but it will be a different story with older folk. Expect to see even more sarcopenia and mental deterioration in this group.
I can see it now, the rise and rise of the living dead. Pharma ‘solutions’ to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity will produce a generation of undead morons. I truly cannot even bring myself to research this topic further; it took me minutes to find the academic papers so presumably this is all well known and will be documented with raging-hindsight in 20 yrs time.
Mortality figures are not the issue in 21st century UK, morbidity is.
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