Effect of Stevia Consumption on Blood Pressure, Stress Hormone Levels and Anthropometrical Parameters in Healthy Persons

Abstract

Stevia is a natural sweetener containing steviol glycosides known to be several times sweeter than sucrose. It is thought to have several beneficial properties though some evidence state it may have detrimental effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential beneficial or harmful effects of stevia consumption by exploring its effects on blood pressure, stress hormone levels and anthropometrical markers in A crossover placebo controlled study was conducted on 16 volunteers randomly assigned to consume either stevia or a placebo (sugar) for one week. The measurements were attained on three different occasions and each volunteer was allowed a 3-day initiation period before baseline and in between interventions. The systolic BP increased following stevia intake from 114.5±12.7 to 119.9±12.9mmHg (p<0.001) and diastolic BP from 70.8±9.4 to 75.7±9.6mmHg (p<0.01). Systolic BP increased slightly after the sugar placebo to 115.3±13.6 mmHg (not significant). The mean free cortisol excreted in urine has increased from 91.8±49.1 to 125.7±60.5nmole/day (p<0.01) after the stevia and to 109.1±42.6nmole/day after the placebo (p = 0.210). The ratio of urinary free cortisol/cortisone showed a statistically significant increase from 1.73±0.78 to 2.65±1.03 after stevia (p<0.0001). Salivary cortisol levels have also increased (p<0.01 at AM) after stevia. Placebo intake did not produce a significant change in salivary cortisol. The ratio of salivary cortisol/cortisone during the stevia has increased only in the morning (from 1.22±0.65 to 1.75±0.72, p = 0.05) and a modest increase in the daily average of salivary cortisol/cortisone. There was small insignificant reduction in weight and BMI after stevia intervention (p = 0.246 and p = 0.249 respectively). In conclusion, we have shown that short term stevia intake produced a small but significant increase in BP and effect on body weight and BMI were not significant. The rise in BP might be due to the increase in cortisol levels and cortisol/cortisone ratio indicating that stevia may possibly inhibit 11β-HSD2 enzyme by reducing the conversion of cortisol into cortisone. Therefore caution should be taken by the public who want to consume stevia for longer period of time as a weight reducing sweetener.

The effects of low-calorie sweeteners on energy intake and body weight: a systematic review and meta-analyses of sustained intervention studies

“…(1) LCS vs sugar Included Studies. A total of 51 studies compared LCS with sugar: 37 parallel-groups studies [21][22][23][24][25][26][28][29][30][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] (one of these 21 was partly reported earlier in 59 ) and 14 cross-over studies [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68] .…”

“…Children were participants in 11 studies 41,45,49,64 , and adults were participants in 40 studies [21][22][23][24]26,[28][29][30][42][43][44]46,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][65][66][67][68] . In 13 studies, all the participants were people with overweight and/or obesity.…”

“…All other articles included both female and male participants (or gender was not specified 46,47 ), with results reported separately for females and males in three articles 54,58,65 . In 33 studies the LCS vs sugar intervention involved beverages only [21][22][23][24][28][29][30]41,[42][43][44][45][46]48,50,52,[55][56][57][58]60,65,67,68 , and in 18 studies it involved beverages and foods 26,49,51,53,54,[61][62][63][64]66 . The LCS was aspartame in 24 studies [21][22][23]26,[28][29][30]49,[55][56]…”

“…For the parallel-groups studies the median duration of the interventions was weeks (1 to 78 weeks; mean = 16.5 weeks), and for the cross-over studies it was 3 weeks (1 to weeks; mean = 3.2 weeks). Articles reporting 30 parallelgroups studies [21][22][23][24]26,[28][29][30][41][42][43]45,46,[50][51][52][53][55][56][57][58] and 13 cross-over studies [60][61][62]64,[65][66][67]68 provided data on sugar dose: parallel-group studies mean = 1272 kJ/d (median = 1308 kJ/d), crossover studies mean = 1542 kJ/d (median = 1591 kJ/d). The studies were carried out predominantly in the USA (28 studies) and Europe (16 studies).…”

Effect of Steviol Glycosides on Human Health with Emphasis on Type 2 Diabetic Biomarkers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

“…Six hundred and seventy-seven nonduplicate studies were obtained from electronic searches, out of which 17 eligible studies were identified (Figure 2). A total of 10 studies were excluded due to incompatible data ( n = 4 [14,21,22,41]) and inappropriate study design ( n = 6 [25,42,44,56,57,58]). Seven studies comprising nine RCTs and a total of 462 participants were included in this review [15,16,17,18,19,43,59].…”