Hello there and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinegel.

And I am bumping the topic that I originally had planned for this week in order to respond

to a breaking news story that has caused some concern. The headline that many of you

probably saw was something like this. Artificial sweetener linked to heart attacks, blood

clots and strokes. Okay, that's already pretty alarming. But some news outlets sought to

up the SEO anti even a bit further by identifying that sweetener as being one that is commonly

used in keto foods or products that are pitched to those following the ultra trendy ketogenic

diet. Let's take a closer look at what researchers found, what we still do not know and how

this information might apply to your own health risks and your dietary decisions. The paper

was published in the journal Nature Medicine by an international consortium of researchers.

It was funded by the NIH as well as a variety of European foundations and agencies. And it

actually described a number of different studies all leading to the conclusion that intake

of a Rithritol, a popular low calorie sweetener was associated with an increased risk of forming

blood clots, which could lead to an increased risk of heart attacks or strokes. This whole

thing started with some blood work that was done on about 1200 people as part of a study that

was looking at cardiovascular disease risk over time. And the researchers detected the presence

of several compounds called polyols. They're also commonly known as sugar alcohols in the subject's

blood. And they noticed that the presence of sugar alcohols, especially a Rithritol, was

associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, and deaths. They went on to find

that same association into further large study populations. And the effect was linear, meaning

the higher the Rithritol levels in the blood, the higher the risk of cardiovascular events. Those

in the top quartile, the ones with the highest levels in their blood, had three to four times the

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