Erythritol and the Scary Headlines

My wife texted me a link.

It was a headline about erythritol. That's the sweetener inside a lot of sugar-free sodas, keto ice creams and protein bars. The headline said it could raise your risk of a stroke.

Then she added one line. Isn't that the stuff in your coffee?

It is. So this week's wrap starts there.

A quick catch-up if you're new. All week, I wore a glucose monitor on my arm. It's a small sensor that checks my blood sugar every few minutes, day and night. And I tested table sugar against the most popular sugar swaps: monk fruit, stevia, allulose and erythritol.

The blood sugar part turned out to be simple. The heart part is not...

● This Week's Rules

📌 This Week's Rules

✓	Pure stevia, monk fruit, allulose and erythritol barely raised my blood sugar on their own.

✓	A sugar-free sweetener doesn't cancel the flour. The muffin made with monk fruit still raised my blood sugar 28 points.

✓	Read the label. Many "monk fruit" sweeteners are mostly erythritol, with a little monk fruit added.

✓	The heart questions about erythritol aren't settled. Going easy on it while the studies come in is a fair choice.

✓	Allulose did the best on my glucose monitor. But big servings of it can cause gas and bloating.

● The Scoreboard

Here's how much each one raised my blood sugar this week. This is one person's experiment, not medical advice. Everyone's body responds differently.

🧁 Muffin made with sugar

+68

🧁 Same muffin, made with monk fruit

+28

🥄 Erythritol, on its own

🍈 Monk fruit, on its own

🌿 Stevia, on its own

✨ Allulose, on its own

The four sweeteners on their own barely moved my blood sugar. That matches the research. Your body doesn't turn any of them into glucose the way it turns table sugar into glucose.

In other words, there's almost nothing there for your blood sugar to rise on.

But look at the second row. The monk fruit muffin still raised my blood sugar 28 points. The sweetener added almost nothing. The flour did the rest.

● Erythritol and the Headlines

So what about my wife's link?

Here's the thing. The worry started at the Cleveland Clinic in 2023. A team there found that people with more erythritol in their blood were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke within three years.

That's a link, not proof. And your body makes a little erythritol on its own, so blood levels don't only come from food.

So in 2024, the same team gave a small group of healthy people an erythritol drink. Afterward, their platelets were quicker to clump together. Platelets are the tiny cells that make your blood clot.

In other words, their blood got a bit more ready to form clots. Clots are what cause most heart attacks and strokes.

Then in 2025, a lab at the University of Colorado Boulder put cells from brain blood vessels in a dish with about as much erythritol as one sugar-free drink. After three hours, those cells were worse at relaxing and worse at sending out the signal that helps break up clots. That study is the one going around again this year. It's the one my wife saw.

But it was cells in a dish. Not people.

Meanwhile, the evidence is pulling the other way too. A research team in Switzerland had people drink erythritol and checked their platelets. In an update posted this May, they said their early results showed no measurable change in clotting. They noted that their results don't match the Cleveland Clinic's.

And a trial at Charité hospital in Berlin is testing erythritol, sucralose and saccharin side by side in people with prediabetes. It's due to wrap up next month.

It's a real debate. Nobody has settled it.

So what am I doing? I'm not panicking. But I swapped the erythritol in my morning coffee for a pinch of pure stevia. I don't know if that's the right call. The research is still young... I just didn't want a daily habit sitting on the shakiest science of the bunch.

● Reader Mail

Question

I've put erythritol in my coffee every day for three years. Did I hurt myself?

My Response

I can't tell you that. Nobody can yet. The studies so far show a link and some worrying lab results, not proof that a daily coffee sweetener causes harm. If you have heart disease or a clotting problem, it's worth asking your doctor about. For everyone else, cutting back costs you almost nothing. Pure stevia and pure monk fruit barely raised my blood sugar either.

Question

Is allulose the safe one, then?

My Response

It's the newest one, so it has the least long-term data. The short-term news is good. A 2023 review of studies in healthy people found that a small dose of allulose with a meal led to a smaller rise in blood sugar afterward. That fits what my glucose monitor showed. The catch is your stomach. In big amounts, allulose can cause gas and bloating, so start small.

Question

My sweetener packet says zero sugar. Why did my homemade cookies still raise my blood sugar?

My Response

Two reasons. First, the flour. Your body breaks the starch in flour down into glucose, no matter what you sweeten the dough with. Second, check the packet. Some sweetener packets use dextrose or maltodextrin as filler. Both are forms of sugar your body absorbs fast. The amount in one packet is small, but a whole batch of cookies adds up.

● Next Week: Dried Fruit Danger

Next week we shrink the fruit and see what happens. Dates, raisins and dried mango all go up against my glucose monitor. And yes, my kids already ate half the raisins.

🌴

Mon

Dates on trial: tiny but mighty

🥜

Tue

Pairing dried fruit to soften it

🥭

Wed

Dates vs Raisins vs Dried mango

🍇

Thu

Fresh grapes vs Raisins

Stay steady

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