Stevia

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I HAVE COPIED BELOW INFORMATION ON A NEW ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER THAT WILL BE AVAILABLE. DOES ANYONE KNOW IF STEVIA HAS A NEGATIVE TRIGGER FOR SEIZURES?
Sturg

Stevia: Healthy Alternative to Sugar and Aspartame

Stevia comes from the dried leaves of the stevia plant. It is an excellent natural alternative to sugar. It has no calories, has none of the side effects or health risks of sugar, aspartame and saccharin and is not broken down by heat. Stevia accounts for nearly 40% of the sweetener market in Japan. Due to more strict safety restrictions, aspartame is banned.

(I'm guessing if a sweetner is banned in a country, I wouldn't be consuming it.)

Stevioside found in stevia is about 30-50 times sweeter than sugar, but it contains no calories. It can be used in cooking and baking in many cases just as sugar is? You simply use much less. A number of good stevia cookbooks are available

Stevia has beneficial effects on glucose tolerance and is therefore helpful for diabetics. (Curi) A recent study in Denmark showed that stevia stimulates insulin secretion. The results indicate that stevia indeed has a potential role as antihyperglycemic agents in the treatment of Type II diabetes.

Its use as a sweetener could reduce one?s intake of sugars, reducing our caloric intake. Usually, the powdered herb is added directly to food or beverages.
Stevia also has other benefits as it promotes probiotic growth in the intestinal tract and reduces hypertension (as recently shown in a human double-blind placebo-controlled study. (Chan) Extensive reviews of human and animal data indicate stevia to be safe.
 
Stevia isn't new, and it's not artificial. It is good stuff for sweatening tea though. Stacy has been using it for years. It is not a seizure trigger for her.
 
Stevia is one of the products commonly used by kids on the Ketogenic Diet. You want to make sure you get the pure product, though, as a lot of sweeteners contain filler that may not be good for seizures.

I don't care for the taste of Stevia -- it has a overly sweet, bitter taste, like sacchrine. But our little guy uses a little.
 
It appears that Pepsi is going to offer it this year in a new product. Thanks for reply-Sturg
 
Hmmm.....but then there'd still be the caffeine.

I made the mistake of assuming the "Coke Zero" was both sugar free and caffeine free, and let Jon have some sips. Fortunately, he didn't care for it much, and didn't drink very much.
 
I've been using stevia for a few years with no adverse effects on either my type 1 diabetes nor my epilepsy. It's available in most markets. I'm glad to hear that a mainstream company will be introducing it.
 
Although I didn't experience any immediate allergic reactions to stevia, after using it for months, I started experiencing something very unusual: simple partial seizures (no prior history of seizures). I believe my chronic consumption had a cumulative effect over months that caused these events.

After much research and consulting with a neurologist, I then consulted an endocrinologist. It lead me to the insight that stevia might be the underlying cause. I stopped consuming stevia and the seizures stopped. I'm keeping my fingers crossed there will be no recurrence.

I have also learned that stevia has, in a couple of cases I know of, undermined the ketogenic diet and is suspected of causing seizures while on the diet.
 
I think the problem with the Ketogenic diet was not so much the Stevia itself, as the additives that come with a lot of the products that are marketed as "Stevia." For instance, one product that I purchased turned out to be only 10% Stevia, and 90% another product (which escapes my mind right now) -- so it wasn't really carb free.

If those carbs aren't calculated into the very strict Ketogenic diet, and one consumes 2 or 3 (or more) packets a day, then that can add up enough carbs to skew the diet.

The Charlie Foundation recommends a "Pure" form of Stevia -- I can look that up later and post it here.
 
...in my case I was using the liquid "pure stevia extract" (to add to tea) and consuming drinks like Vitamin Water and Blue Sky Soda (sweetened with Reb A). There's a study that indicates that stevia can disrupt the thyroid which, in extreme cases, can lead to hypothyroid which lends itself to seizures.
 
Hmm..hadn't heard that about the thyroid and Stevia. Do you think you could track that study down?? It would probably be good to post that over at the Charlie Foundation forum, since a lot of Mom's give Stevia to their kids.

I have stopped giving Jonathan any artificial sweeteners (and yes, he did develop hypothyroid). He gets a tiny amount in his Cytra-K cystals, and that's all. We used to give him the artificially sweetened waters and sparkling waters (to encourage him to drink), but cut those out several months ago, because of our suspicions that they may be contributing to seizures and also his frequent diarrhea.

However, for myself, I do use artificial sweeteners, as I have cut sugar out of my diet (my blood sugar was creeping up into pre-diabetes range). So, interested in the thyroid link.
 
Hi Karen. I had to edit my message to not include links (since I am a new member). So you will need to copy and paste the links to view. If you find the links helpful, please feel free to repost as links.

Here is reference to study that indicates stevia affects thyroid in animals (lower T3 indicates hypothyroid):

http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19012609

And here are a couple more articles addressing side effects (hypocalcemia also causes seizures):

http://askanaturopath.com/faqs/stevia-rebaudiana/p/349

http://101sideeffects.com/stevia-side-effects

Be aware that Merisant got stevia FDA approved. This is the same company that brought us aspartame.

Also, what's interesting to me is that vitamin D is a natural anti-seizure in itself and also helps alleviate both hypothyroid and hypocalcemia. Unfortunately, anti-seizure meds. deplete vitamin D levels - treating the symptoms and potentially exacerbating possible underlying causes. So have vitamin D levels checked regularly.
 
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Thank you QBT -- and also, thank you Bernard for putting the links in directly.

This is good information to have -- especially for Keto kids who often consume a good bit of artificial sweeteners since they can't have sugar. I seem to remember on the Charlie Foundation forum some parents being suspicious about Stevia -- noticing some seizures when their child was consuming it regularly.
 
I noted from the first study that Stevia has positive benefits with regard to being anti-fungal and anti-microbial, and that in the chicks studied, it lowered blood sugar and triglycerides.

Negatively, it lowered the T-3 levels and increased abdominal fat. (NOT good news for diabetics, who would perhaps be one of the more common consumers of Stevia)

It would be fascinating to see if these results would be similar with humans -- and I can't imagine why a study hasn't yet been done to that end.
 
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