You might hope that "diabetic friendly energy drinks" would be safe for diabetics to use. In most cases, that would prove to be a false hope.
Most manufacturers of products claimed to be diabetic friendly choose to use artificial sweeteners to achieve sugar-free status. These provide no calories and have been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, so you might think they would be safe and effective. Again, in most instances you would be wrong on both counts.
Recent studies have shown that artificial sweeteners are neither safe nor effective. Let's deal with the "not effective" flaw first because that is really the most shocking piece of information.
Diet Beverages Cause Weight Gains
Scientific tests on humans and a variety of animals have shown repeatedly that artificial sweeteners in general cause weight gain and they spike insulin release -- two things that diabetics should be avoiding.(1)
Because the artificial sweetener industry makes substantial donations to the American Diabetic Association, the ADA is happy to recommend these dangerous substances to diabetics as a good way to "have your cake and eat it, too". (Always a message the public likes to hear!)
Most manufacturers of so-called diabetic friendly energy drinks are also eager to go along with the FDA and ADA recommendations because using artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium are cheaper than natural non-caloric sweeteners such as stevia and xylitol.
If the diabetic doesn't take the time to read the actual scientific reports about the proven dangers associated with artificial sweeteners -- and learn to carefully read product ingredient labels -- they won't know these things.
Neither the FDA nor the ADA are going to tell them, either, because they have conflicts of interests.
So, most diabetic friendly energy drinks don't fit the common definition of "effective" if they actually cause weight gain and cause even more insulin to be released into the diabetic's bloodstream, do they? This just makes the disease worse.
The health dangers found in each of these artificial sweeteners are different and would take too long to document in this article. I have included an article and a video as references that go into these increased risk factors in depth(1, 2).
Let's just mention two of the most attention-catching conditions that have been associated with use of these artificial sweeteners: Cancers and Neurological diseases such as ADD/ADHD, Depression, and lower IQ in babies whose mothers ingested these substances while they were pregnant.
The testimony of Dr. Russell Blaylock and Dr. Joseph Mercola about the dangers of aspartame and sucralose -- two of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners in energy drinks -- should be enough to convince any health-conscious diabetic that it is worth their time to read the labels of these beverages and take action to protect themselves.
My personal experience with all these synthetic sweeteners agrees with the findings of Drs. Mercola and Blaylock. As one who has diabetes on both sides of my family tree, I have long been careful to avoid using sugar -- and, for a time, I trusted that commercial products using various artificial sweeteners would be safe and effective as an alternative.
How Wrong I Was!
I experienced terribly painful dental problems caused by the regular use of a sucralose-sweetened sports drink five years ago. The pain went away as soon as I stopped drinking the beverage. I can't comment on the long-term neurological potential for damage predicted by Dr. Blaylock, but my teeth certainly recognized sucralose as "made from sugar" -- and at least as bad.
My experiences with aspartame were similar to the neurological symptoms described by Dr. Blaylock, a neurosurgeon and author. To compound the damage to one's nervous system, aspartame is also habit-forming. This addictive quality makes it hard for many who have used it to give it up.
Continued use of energy drinks containing these common artificial sweeteners are what is really concerning.
On the one hand, diabetics and those of us on the borderline have a physical need for safe sources of more energy.
On the other hand, the commercial and even the pharmaceutical products offered to us to fill the need are ineffective and a source of new, more dangerous health risks.
