Sodium cyclamate than harmful? Food supplement E-952

It is difficult to imagine modern food without the appropriate additives. Various sweeteners have gained particular popularity. For a long time, the most common of them was the chemical substance sodium cyclamate (another name - e952, additive). To date, those facts that speak of its harm have already been reliably confirmed.

Hazardous Sweetener Properties

Sodium cyclamate belongs to the group of cyclic acids. Each of these compounds will look like a white crystalline powder. It smells absolutely nothing, its main property is a pronounced sweet taste. By its effect on taste buds, it can be 50 times sweeter than sugar. If you mix it with other sweeteners, then the sweetness of food can increase many times. The excess concentration of the additive is easy to track - the aftertaste with a metallic taste will be clearly visible in the mouth.

This substance dissolves very quickly in water (and not so quickly - in alcohol compounds). It is also characteristic that E-952 will not dissolve in fatty substances.

Nutritional Supplements E: Varieties and Classifications

On each product label in the store there is a continuous series of letters and numbers incomprehensible to a simple inhabitant. None of the buyers want to understand this chemical nonsense: many products go to the basket without close examination. Moreover, the nutritional supplements used in the modern food industry will recruit about two thousand. Each of them has its own code and designation. Those that were produced at European enterprises carry the letter E. Often used food additives E (the table below shows their classification) came to the border of three hundred names.

Nutritional Supplements E, Table 1

Prohibited and allowed lists

Each E-product is considered a priori technologically justified in use and tested for safety for use in human nutrition. For this reason, the buyer trusts the manufacturer, without going into details of the harm or benefits of such an additive. But nutritional supplements E are the above-water part of a huge iceberg. Discussions are still ongoing regarding their true impact on human health. Sodium cyclamate also causes a lot of controversy.

Similar disagreements related to the resolution and use of such substances take place not only in our country, but also in European countries and the USA. In Russia, three lists have been compiled to date:

1. Allowed additives.

2. Prohibited supplements.

3. Substances that are not expressly permitted but not prohibited.

Hazardous Nutrition Supplements

In our country, the food additives shown in the following table are clearly prohibited.

Food additives E prohibited in the Russian Federation, table 2

The current state of the food industry does not completely dispense with food additives. Another thing is that their use is often unreasonably exaggerated. Such chemical food additives can increase the risk of very serious diseases, but this will be clear only decades after their use. But it is impossible to completely deny the benefits of eating such food: with the help of additives, many of the products are enriched with vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to humans. What danger or harm is E952 (additive)?

History of sodium cyclamate use

Initially, this chemical found its application in pharmacology: Abbott Laboratories wanted to use this sweet discovery to mask the bitterness of certain antibiotics. But closer to 1958, sodium cyclamate was recognized as safe for eating. And in the mid-sixties, it was already proved that cyclamate is a carcinogenic catalyst (although not an obvious cause of cancer). That is why disputes over the harm or benefits of this chemical are still ongoing.

But, despite such allegations, the additive (sodium cyclamate) is allowed as a sweetener, the harm and benefits of which are still being studied in more than 50 countries of the world. For example, it is allowed in Ukraine. And in Russia, this drug was, on the contrary, excluded from the list of approved nutritional supplements in 2010.

E-952. Is the supplement harmful or beneficial?

What does such a sweetener carry? Is harm or good hidden in his formula? The popular sweetener was previously sold in the form of tablets that were prescribed to diabetics as an alternative to sugar.

Food preparation is characterized by the use of a mixture, which will consist of ten parts of an additive and one part of saccharin. Due to the stability of such a sweetener when heated, it can be used both in confectionery baking and in drinks that are soluble in hot water.

Cyclamate is widely used for the preparation of ice cream, desserts, fruit or vegetable products with low calorie content, as well as for the preparation of low-alcohol drinks. It is found in canned fruits, jams, jellies, marmalade, pastries and chewing gum.

The additive is also used in pharmacology: it is used to make mixtures used for the manufacture of vitamin-mineral complexes and cough suppressants (including lozenges). There is also its application in the cosmetic industry - sodium cyclamate is a component of lip glosses and lipsticks.

Conditionally safe supplement

In the process of using E-952 is not able to be fully absorbed by most people and animals - it will be excreted in the urine. Safe is considered a daily dose from a ratio of 10 mg per 1 kg of body weight.

There are certain categories of people in whom this food supplement is processed into teratogenic metabolites. That is why sodium cyclamate can be harmful if used by pregnant women.

Despite the fact that the food supplement E-952 is recognized as conditionally safe by the World Health Organization, it is necessary to be careful about its use, while observing the indicated daily norm. If possible, it is necessary to abandon the products containing it, which will have an excellent effect on human health.