ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS: - University of Maryland

The Stevia plant produces several steviol glycosides 4 , with stevioside (“stevia”) and
rebaudioside A (“rebiana”) in the highest percentage. Up until recently, the European
Union and the US FDA have not granted companies wishing to use stevia compounds as
a food additive permission, due to concerns that the chemical compounds may cause
mutagenic or reproductive difficulties. For this reason, stevia and rebiana containing
products started appearing in health food stores as “herbal supplements” – as the FDA
has no regulatory rule over these products as they do over food additives. (20) Concerns
over which glycosides were present in the food product and the manufacturing principles
of the supplier kept the FDA suspect of any product containing stevia as a primary
sweetener.
Figure 14. Steviol(37 )
Even though they each contain several glucose molecules, neither stevia nor rebiana are
absorbed into the blood stream and therefore do not affect blood glucose. (37) Both
4 "glycoside." A glycoside is a group of natural occurring molecules in which one or more glucose molecules are
attached The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company,
2004. Answers.com 19 May. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/glycoside