Identificación de los tipos y composición química de Edulcorantes no calóricos presentes en confites, snacks y bebidas que se expenden en bares, tiendas y micromercados circundantes al Campus Central de la Universidad de Cuenca

Abstract

The food industry uses non-caloric sweeteners in different ultra-processed products as a substitute for sugar. The objective of the present work was to classify the products according to the NOVA system and to identify the non-caloric sweeteners by means of the analysis of the nutritional label present in all the evaluated products. The study was conducted at the Central Campus of the University de Cuenca, which is a sample due to its socio-demographic characteristics and its retail food products, a scenario that is reproducible at the national level and in various countries around the world. A cross-sectional observational study was carried out in 21 stores, and by means of a photographic record of the label, the nutritional information was extracted in a database to be later tabulated. Several studies have evaluated the possible effects of non-caloric sweeteners in animals, obtaining contradictory results, which were analyzed in this work by means of a bibliographic review. The search for articles was carried out in the digital databases PubMed, ScieELO, Scopus and Redalyc using keywords and Boolean operators. A total of 39 products were analyzed, of which 84.6% were beverages, 10.3% confectionery and 5.1% snacks. The combination of sweeteners sucralose-acesulfame potassium (25.6%) and aspartame-acesulfame potassium (25.6%) were the most frequent. The main results obtained in the bibliographic review were its capacity to generate multiorgan damage in murine populations, among them: neurotoxicity, carcinogenicity, hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, among others. Evidencing the lack of studies that determine possible side effects in humans.