What is Stevia?

If you’ve ever tasted stevia, you know it’s extremely sweet. In fact, this remarkable non-caloric South American herb has been used as a sweetener by the Guarani Indians of Paraguay for hundreds of years to sweeten their yerba mate and other stimulant beverages. Stevia is the leaves of a small, green plant have a delicious and refreshing taste that can be 30 times sweeter than sugar.

Stevia has many excellent properties. The body does not metabolize the sweet glycosides from the stevia leaf or any of its processed forms - so there is no caloric intake. Stevia doesn't adversely affect blood glucose levels and may be used freely by diabetics.

But this innocuous looking plant has also been a focal point of intrigue in the United States in recent years because of actions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

That’s why you don’t see stevia on supermarket shelves next to the Sweet’N Low or Equal. But you can buy it in health food stores, or online as a dietary supplement. The FDA has little control over supplements, or

Why hasn’t the FDA approved stevia? “We don’t have enough data to conclude that the use in food would be safe,” the agency stated in 1994. But the U.S. isn’t alone. Canada doesn’t allow food companies to add stevia to their products, nor does the European Union.

Last year, the scientific panel that reviews the safety of food ingredients for the EU concluded that Stevia is “not acceptable” as a sweetener because of unresolved concerns about its toxicity. In 1998, a United Nations expert panel came to essentially the same conclusion.

Since the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), stevia can be sold legally in the United States, but only as a “dietary supplement.”  Even so, it can be found in many forms in most health-food stores, and is also incorporated into drinks, teas and other items (all labeled as “dietary supplements”).  It cannot, however, be called a “sweetener” or even referred to as “sweet.”  To do so would render the product “adulterated,” according to the FDA, and make it again subject to seizure.

A 1985 study reported that steviol, a breakdown product from stevioside and rebaudioside (two of the sweet steviol glycosides in the stevia leaf), is a mutagen in the presence of a liver extract of rats pretreated with a PCB blend — but this finding was criticized on procedural grounds that the data were mishandled in such a way that even distilled water would appear mutagenic. Over the following years, bioassay, cell culture, and animal studies have shown mixed results in terms of toxicology and adverse effects of stevia constituents. While reports emerged that found steviol and stevioside to be weak mutagens, the bulk of studies show an absence of harmful effects. In a 2008 review, 14 of 16 studies cited showed no genotoxic activity for stevioside, 11 of 15 studies showed no genotoxic activity for steviol, and no studies showed genotoxicity for rebaudioside A. No evidence for stevia constituents causing cancer or birth defects has been found.

Other studies have shown stevia to improve insulin sensitivity in rats, and possibly even to promote additional insulin production, helping to reverse diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Preliminary human studies suggest stevia can help reduce hypertension, although another study has shown it to have no effect on hypertension. Indeed, millions of Japanese have been using stevia for over thirty years with no reported or known harmful effects. Similarly, stevia leaves have been used for centuries in South America, spanning multiple generations in ethno medical tradition as a treatment for Diabetes mellitus type 2.

In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) performed a thorough evaluation of recent experimental studies of stevioside and steviols conducted on animals and humans, and concluded "stevioside and rebaudioside A are not genotoxic in vitro or in vivo and that the genotoxicity of steviol and some of its oxidative derivatives in vitro is not expressed in vivo." The report also found no evidence of carcinogenic activity. Furthermore, the report noted "stevioside has shown some evidence of pharmacological effects in patients with hypertension or with Diabetes mellitus type 2", but concluded further study was required to determine proper dosage. The WHO's Joint Experts Committee on Food Additives has approved, based on long-term studies, an acceptable daily intake of steviol glycoside of up to 4 milligrams per kilogram of body weight

Beginning in 2009 in the United States, the U.S. FDA considers "Rebiana (rebaudioside A) to be Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)". With respect to the measure of toxicity, which can be described as the median lethal dose or LD, a report submitted to the FDA documents "the observed LD values were 5.2 g/kg bw for male hamsters and 6.1 g/kg bw for female hamsters.

Conclusion, do some research and decide if Stevia is right for you. I personally would use it over anything else out there.