Does Stevia Cause Cancer?

For decades people have worried about the association between non-standard sweeteners like stevia and cancer. Luckily, you have little to fear when it comes to stevia products. 

Stevia isn’t necessarily safe for everyone. But experts generally think of it as a healthy alternative to sucrose and most kinds of regular sugar. Plus, if you already have cancer it might be the safest sweetener on the market.   

People use the term stevia to describe a range of natural sweetening extracts. All stevia products come from a plant in the Stevia genus. There are more than 230 species in this genus. The species that most companies use to create these extracts goes by the scientific name Stevia rebaudiana. 

Common names for this plant include: 

• Sugar leaf
• Candy leaf
• Honey leaf
• The sweet herb of Paraguay

The native people of Paraguay and Brazil have used these leaves as sweeteners for hundreds of years. These days, stevia products are used as sugar substitutes throughout the commercial food industry. Companies extract a variety of chemicals from the leaves to create liquid extracts and dry powders. You can also purchase packets of stevia to use as a sugar replacement in your own cooking. Some people even take stevia as a supplement.

The sweet chemicals in stevia are called steviol glycosides or steviols when they’re extracted. The plant’s most common chemical extract is a molecule called rebaudioside A. It’s 300 to 450 times sweeter than sucrose — the most common sweetener in use today. 

Other sweet chemicals that could be in your stevia extract include: 

• Stevioside
• Rebaudiosides B,C,D,E, and F
• Steviolbioside
• Isosteviol

Even though they come from plants, stevia extracts are loosely grouped with a wide range of chemical products called artificial sweeteners. All of these products are individually approved by regulatory agencies around the world. In the U.S., they’re regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. 

In 2008, the FDA categorized stevia extracts as GRAS, which stands for “generally recognized as safe”. The government allows GRAS products in most foods and beverages. To receive this classification, a substance must meet some of the following criteria: 

• Expert approval
• Long-term use by a wide range of people — without unwanted observable effects
• Use in enough human studies to rule out significant short-term problems

Stevia is one of the most well-researched artificial sweeteners on the market. People have widely used stevia extracts in Japan for decades. The sweetener has also been approved for use throughout the EU since 2011. Plus, humans have consumed the leaves for over a millennium. No significant negative effects have been found. 

 In 1991, the U.S. banned the use of stevia products because early studies hinted at links between these chemicals and cancer. Luckily, numerous large-scale follow-up studies didn’t support these early results. 

Now, both the U.S. National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK have stated that stevia products do not appear to cause cancer. This conclusion is based on the results of numerous large-scale human studies that involved stevia. 

To date, scientists have used stevia in a wide range of studies and have not found significant links to cancer. In fact, Japan alone has conducted over 40,000 studies on stevia plants and their products. 

The one cancer-related issue that’s currently associated with stevia has to do with one particular chemical — stevioside. Test-tube and animal studies show that this chemical acts like a mild mutagen. Mutagens are able to change the structure of your DNA and the information that’s stored in your genetic code. This could lead to developing cancer, but studies have not been done to show that stevioside causes cancer in animals.

Luckily, human studies haven’t found an increased risk of cancer when people start to eat more stevia products. Additionally, other stevia extracts like rebaudioside A don’t act like mutagens. 

You may even benefit from incorporating stevia into your diet. Research shows that using stevia instead of regular sugar can: 

• Help lower your blood pressure
• Increase the feeling of fullness which could help you lose weight
• Provide a sweet taste without significantly affecting your blood sugar — which is helpful for people with diabetes

There was even one study that looked at sugar use in cancer patients. Researchers observed 317 cancer patients over the course of seven years. They found that the people who were most likely to die from cancer also ate the most sweetened food. This was true for all of the sweeteners that they studied — except for stevia.

Generally speaking, people with cancer should try to limit, but not eliminate, their sugar intake. Based on studies like the one mentioned above, switching to stevia might actually be your healthiest choice if you’ve already been diagnosed with cancer. Just make sure to talk to your doctor first to make sure that this switch is safe for your particular condition.

If you’re a healthy individual, you shouldn’t need to talk to your doctor before switching to foods and beverages that are flavored with stevia products. In fact, they may even recommend the switch if you’re a fan of sugary foods. 

But swapping from sucrose to stevia can impact your normal body chemistry. Consult a medical professional about consuming stevia if you’re: 

• Pregnant or breastfeeding
• Taking medication to lower your blood pressure
• Taking medication to lower your blood sugar
• Allergic to sunflowers, marigolds, ragweed, or other plants in the Astricacea family

You should always talk to your doctor before choosing to use stevia as a dietary supplement. Supplements can have higher concentrations of chemicals than the amounts that you typically find in your daily consumption. This difference can have unexpected side effects on your body. In general, supplements can interfere with the activity of prescription medications or can complicate existing health conditions.

In general, making the switch to stevia is a great way to improve a well-balanced diet. A sweet snack doesn’t always have to be an unhealthy one. And — in the case of stevia — there’s little risk of your choice leading to cancer.