The Dubious Strategies of the Artificial Sweetener Companies

Critics warn consumers to be on the lookout for ways the artificial sweetener industry bends advertising rules to reach a growing market. 

Reading food labels can help consumers know whether artificial sweeteners have been added to products. Shutterstock

Artificial sweeteners garnered heavy political and legal criticism in 2023 for potential harms to human health. The hubbub, however, has not yet led to substantial changes.

Controversy surrounds the debate over whether artificial sweeteners support or undermine our health. Companies with vested interests try to captivate consumers with questionable claims about sweetened foods and beverages without high calories. A change in the World Health Organization’s sweetener recommendation midway through the year heightened attention on these practices.

Over the years, various artificial sweetener stakeholders, government agencies, and public watchdog groups have been in cat-and-mouse game over the accuracy and legality of certain marketing strategies. In rare cases, pressure has halted unethical practices. But new marketing schemes continually crop up.

Public Health Investigations Are Down

The age-old problem is exacerbated by a modern quandary: Fewer media and government agencies are paying attention, said Gary Ruskin, who has 36 years of experience in public interest work. He told The Epoch Times that in the 1960s and 70s, Congress and state legislatures initiated investigations on health matters and the media covered consumer-focused issues more broadly.

“Now they don’t,” said Mr. Ruskin, executive director and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit investigative public health group. “There’s a lot of public fact-finding that just doesn’t happen anymore. That failure to investigate corruption has an impact on American health, on their waistlines, on obesity, diabetes, and a pretty big list of diseases.”

Oftentimes, infractions of consumer protection rules related to artificial sweeteners go unnoticed—or worse, ignored. Watchdog groups have been petitioning for more government oversight for years. It’s harder, too, to educate consumers because the internet is overloaded with one-sided information, Mr. Ruskin said.

His concerns have expanded in tandem with the market growth of low-calorie sweeteners, which experience an average sales increase of 3.8 percent a year. Sales of low-calorie sweeteners—which include acesulfame-potassium, aspartame, advantame, neotame, saccharin, and sucralose—reached $29.5 billion in 2023, and are expected to reach $41.2 billion by 2032, according to the International Market Analysis Research and Consulting Group.

U.S. Right to Know and others are working to expose and educate consumers about new marketing tactics on product labeling, as well as quid-pro-quo sponsorships and paid influencer videos that—in some cases—violate Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules.

The Diet Industry That Isn’t

The most egregious ploy, according to Mr. Ruskin, is that corporations describe drink and food products with artificial sweeteners as “diet”—as displayed in product names, labels, and advertisements.

U.S. Right to Know pointed to several studies that indicate sucralose ​​may be contributing to obesity, metabolic dysfunction, weight gain, and increased appetite. One study published in Diabetes Care in September 2023 examined 946,650 people who used artificial sweeteners and found that total sweeteners, aspartame, acesulfame-K, and sucralose all raised the risk of Type 2 diabetes compared to those who didn’t consume artificial sweeteners. It followed participants for a median of 9.1 years.

“The record is clear—there’s quite a lot of review articles—that ‘diet’ implies weight loss, and you shouldn’t be able to use ‘diet’ on products that likely cause weight gain,” Mr. Ruskin said.

Another study, published in Biomedicines, in February 2023 examined the health of 292 newborns whose mothers consumed sucralose during their pregnancies. The moms who consumed “heavy sucralose,” described as the “equivalent to ingesting more than three commercial Splenda® packets daily during gestation” had heavier babies with more inflammatory markers.

Heartland Food Products Group, which makes the most popular sucralose brand Splenda, has a different perspective. Product descriptions align with its goal “to help people live happier and healthier lives by making it easier to reduce sugar.”

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the company said rising obesity and rates of Type 2 diabetes means “this mission has never been more important than it is right now. We take pride in educating and inspiring people to reduce sugar and calories without sacrificing the sweet taste of the food and beverages.”

Sweeteners Showing Up in More Products

“Diet” products aren’t the only problem. Non-diet products are also increasingly being sweetened with artificial sweeteners—sometimes more than one type—and the only way to know is by reading the fine print on ingredient labels, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy group that works to warn consumers about environmental dangers, including those in food.

“Consumers may not be aware of this,” Gianfranco Cesareo, EWG Stabile Law fellow, told The Epoch Times in an email. “An EWG analysis of synthetic sweeteners found that in the past decade, their use has increased across nearly every food category, including by over 300 percent in snacks, cookies, and candies; 600 percent in beverages; and 800 percent in frozen foods.”

Not only has it become more challenging for consumers to find products without artificial sweeteners, it’s also hard to make them aware of an “emerging body of evidence that many artificial sweeteners are linked to a variety of health risks” amid marketing efforts touting the products’ so-called “health” benefits, Mr. Cesareo said.

A History of Deception

A paper trail of complaints illustrates questionable marketing practices are nothing new. For instance, an early manufacturer of Splenda, McNeil Nutritionals (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), was targeted with lawsuits for its initial $200 million marketing slogan “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar.”

Sucralose is a chemical that’s made from sugar, but the manufacturing process removes all traces of it.

Several countries banned the “made from sugar” tagline for violating consumer protection rules. An undisclosed lawsuit settlement in the United States led to the company dropping the phrase from its products, and marketing efforts thereafter began to focus on the benefits of sucralose.

In 2022, advertising campaigns using celebrity spokespeople touted the benefits of swapping sugar for Splenda to help lose weight and lower blood sugar. The brand also held a contest in 2018 with cash prizes for health care experts, such as nutritionists and doctors, who would “debunk junk science” with online posts using hashtags and certain statements.

The FTC Stepped in Last Year

A similar marketing approach led to the FTC issuing warnings in 2023 after dietitians and other health professionals made social media videos defending artificial sweeteners.

It came on the heels of the World Health Organization announcing the results of a review of non-sugar sweeteners on May 15, saying there could be risks of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults who use non-sugar sweeteners long-term. It recommended against using them for weight loss.

The recommendation didn’t change any rules or legislation related to artificial sweeteners. However, it wasn’t long before an assortment of videos began cropping up on social media defending artificial sweeteners.

While that’s not against FTC rules, the social media influencers—12 were targeted with warning letters—either didn’t disclose they were making paid advertising or they used hashtags or captions that weren’t acceptable by the FTC endorsement and influencer standards.

In one example, an oncology dietitian told her followers on Instagram and TikTok to keep drinking their non-sugar-sweetened beverages because they pose “absolutely no threat to your health.” Another one of her videos is captioned: “Aspartame increasing cancer risk?! Nope! Let’s talk about it.”

The FTC pointed out that consumers have the right to know the dietician was paid by the American Beverage Association (ABA). The agency criticized her for not disclosing that fact, and in another instance, for putting vague information in a caption that not many viewers see or open. Neither the dietitian nor the association responded to interview requests.

The letters asked that the videos be removed or remedied, or those involved would face fines of $50,120. “Consumers should be able to notice the disclosure easily, and not have to look for it,” the letters stated, as well as, noting that “any required disclosure should be presented without having to click.”

Claims That Betray Trust

Though it was a media investigation that disclosed the violations, Mr. Ruskin said it was refreshing to see the FTC “spring to life and write letters.”

In its letter to the American Beverage Association, the FTC explained that the experts’ disclosures were inadequate by FTC rules. It also criticized the ABA for its response in a news article saying it was sufficient to use #safetyofaspartame or “safetyofaspartame.com,” a website listing scientific studies in defense of the product,  for disclosure on a social media post.

The FTC letter stated:

“We disagree with that assertion. Even if the terms were displayed in a clear and conspicuous manner, they are insufficiently clear to communicate the paid relationship between the dietician and the American Beverage Association.”

No fines were issued in these cases, which all appear to be resolved. The FTC told The Epoch Times it was unable to give a specific number of fines handed out annually. An agency spokesperson forwarded a website that lists the cases involving endorsement, influencer, or online review issues. There were two fines issued in 2023—neither involved non-sugar sweeteners.

The agency said it learns of cases through reports to its Consumer Sentinel network, complaints from competitors, media reports, and its own monitoring. Another FTC online database tracks warning letters.

“In general we think penalties for violating the FTC act should be much larger,” Mr. Ruskin said. “At least as important as that, we think the FTC ought to police, with much greater vigor, deceptive advertising that includes making sure disclosures are clear, especially in cases of health providers like dietitians.

“That kind of deception is doubly appalling and doubly damaging. It’s a betrayal of public trust.”

Troubling Partnerships Hint at Corruption

A lawsuit filed in late 2023 by a fired American Diabetes Association (ADA) employee brought up another potentially troubling example of betrayal of public trust: sponsorship partnerships.

Elizabeth Hanna is suing the ADA, as well as employees of the nonprofit organization for violating its own guidelines and participating in a “pay to play scheme” that she claims ultimately led to her wrongful termination.

According to the lawsuit filed in New Jersey on Nov. 15, 2023, Ms. Hanna began questioning four of several recipes submitted by Splenda in June 2023 as inappropriate based on the organization’s nutritional guidelines. Hired as the director of nutrition, Ms. Hanna has 16 years of professional experience in medical nutrition. Over the course of several months and supervisor changes, she filed four complaints to the human resources department about “retaliatory” behavior that caused an abusive work environment.

Among the four recipes she questioned was a cucumber and onion salad calling for ⅓ cup of Splenda—something Ms. Hanna believed had no nutritional value in the recipe.

“In short, there is no reason (other than taking Splenda’s money) for the ADA to recommend that people with diabetes add massive amounts of Splenda to cucumber salad. By approving this recipe and others, and endorsing them to the American public with the ADA’s stamp of approval as ‘friendly’ for people with diabetes, the ADA is endorsing Splenda’s use in a manner that betrays people with diabetes who trust the ADA to only recommend appropriate use of calorie-free sweeteners,” the lawsuit states.

Mr. Ruskin said it’s not the first time ADA’s integrity has been under the microscope. “The corruption of the ADA is an old story,” he said.

In a 2010 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, author Roger Collier said sponsorships in the food industry haven’t gotten the kind of scrutiny as those in the tobacco industry. He pointed to the 2005 ADA partnership with Cadbury Schweppes, a soft drink and candy producer. The relationship was heavily criticized yet never halted.

In exchange for a $1.5 million donation, Cadbury was able to use the ADA label on its products that are “better to eat.” Mr. Collier’s article used it as an example of how such relationships between corporations that promote sweets and health associations are at odds with one another.

Partnerships as an ‘Advocacy Strategy’

But Heartland said that it follows policies of disclosing sponsorships, and Splenda is a “proud supporter of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to benefit our mutual goal to help the lives of all people affected by diabetes.”

A company spokesperson directed The Epoch Times to a Splenda blog post and said it is committed to serving those affected with diabetes “with the most impactful resources.”

The ADA told The Epoch Times that it partners with a range of organizations and entities, including other nonprofit organizations, the government, private foundations, and corporations.

In an emailed statement, Brandi Broome, ADA chief development and delivery officer, said, “We select partners who have a shared vision for moving our mission forward and who provide services that are consistent with our Standards of Care and advocacy strategy.”