A hot cup of coffee in the morning might help get you through the day, or it may serve as a nice mid-afternoon pick-me-up to keep you going. Coffee comes with a slew of health benefits, including reducing inflammation, shrinking belly fat, and lowering the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. However, it is necessary to drink your coffee in moderation due to some negative side effects , so monitoring your coffee habits and consumption is important.
Even if you enjoy the taste of coffee to be more awake or alert, it does not imply that you adore drinking it. Many people prefer to mask the flavor of coffee with extra sugars and creamers, resulting in extra saturated fat and calories. These additives also come with various health risks, including other issues such as diabetes.
According to a recent study published in the PLOS Medicine Journal, consuming artificial sweeteners in your diet may be linked to an increased risk of cancer.
Researchers looked at data from 102,865 adults from France participating in the study called NutriNet-Santé study– which is an ongoing research design that is web-based that began in 2009 and is led by the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team. Participants enrolled of their own free will and submitted medical history, sociodemographic, dietary, lifestyle, and health information. The researchers started to gather data on the use of artificial sweeteners from 24-hour diet records. After they received cancer diagnosis data during follow-up visits, the researchers did statistical analyses to see whether artificial sweetener consumption was linked to cancer risk.
The study found that people who consumed more artificial sweeteners, specifically aspartame, a sweeter form of sugar, and acesulfame-K, a lower-calorie artificial sweetener, had an increased chance of developing overall cancer when compared to non-users. Breast cancer and obesity-related malignancies showed higher risks.
The researchers of the study concluded that their findings “don’t support using artificial sweeteners as safe sugar alternatives in meals or drinks, and they provide important and novel data to address the issues surrounding their possible harmful health consequences.”
The majority of coffee creamers contain a lot of artificial sweeteners to enhance the taste. Acesulfame-K, for example, is present in many creamers, including liquid and powder varieties, according to a research published in the Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility.
This isn’t the first time a research paper has shown a link between high levels of artificial sweeteners and a higher risk of cancer. The National Cancer Institute acknowledges several studies, but it also notes that more study is needed to reach a definitive conclusion regarding the suggested relationship.
If you can’t get yourself away from the bad habit of adding flavor to your coffee, there are a few things you can do to make your coffee drinking more healthy, including replacing creamers and measuring your sweetener consumption.