Who knew sugar-free gum could be dangerous???
"Beware of sorbitol." That's what doctors are saying to people who love their sugar-free gum. According to U.S. News & World Report, two patients were taken to a Berlin hospital because they were suffering from severe diarrhea. ... You know, the kind that makes you lose 46 pounds!
A 21-year-old woman, who lost 24 lbs., and a 46-year-old man, who lost 46 lbs., were stumping doctors until they asked them about their chewing gum of choice. That's right. It turns out that the two were daily chewing enormous amounts of sugar-free chewing gum that contained sorbitol ... 15 to 20 sticks a day to be exact. The woman's 15 to 20 sticks of gum earned her a gift of 20 grams of sorbitol consumed each day, while the man's 20 sticks of gum, plus about 200 grams of artificially sweetened candy per day, earned him an even bigger gift, as you can imagine.
The good news is once doctors realized what was going on, they took the two off the chewing gum, and both started to go back to their "normal" amount of trips to the bathroom. After a year's time, the woman regained 15 lbs., and after only 6 months, the man regained 11 lbs.
Doctors say that most sugar-less gums in the U.S. don't contain sorbitol; they contain aspartame (NutraSweet). In fact, all doctors are aware of the fact that sorbitol can cause these terrible side effects. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that dangerous side effects result when more than 50 grams of sorbitol is consumed daily.
The ironic thing, even though most sugar-free gums in America don't contain sorbitol, guess which does? Stride.
Did you know that if you look at the ingredient lists of most Wrigley's products, especially 5, that Sorbitol is the first ingredient?
Posted by: Arden | May 08, 2008 at 09:03 AM