Stevia rebaudiana the unique medicinal plant with sweet taste having hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic activities.

The Editor,

We read the interesting article ‘The truth about artificial sweeteners – are they good for diabetes’ by Purohit and Mishra published in your esteemed journal. This paper brings out clearly and convincingly side effects associated with currently popular sweeteners namely saccharin, aspartame, neotame and sucralose particularly their cancer producing potentials. On the other hand, there is a brief mention about stevia which is derived from plant Stevia rebaudiana. It possesses unique property of not only having a sweet taste but also sugar lowering and lipid lowering property – a distinct advantage over chemical sweeteners. Stevia rebaudiana contains steviol glycosides namely steviosides, rebaudioside, steviolbioside and isosteviol, which are responsible for its sweetness and sugar lowering properties. It has been said to be safe in long term use. Interestingly while stevia is a safe sweetener the currently popular chemical sweeteners have potential to cause cancer when used for long time. It is also well known that these sweeteners are used in many smokeless tobacco products like gutkha and paan masala preparations and these patients are reported to have oral and bladder carcinoma. Further looking at the current pandemic of diabetes prevailing all over Indian subcontinent, use of stevia as an alternative sweetening agent for people who have diabetes, pre-diabetes and/or obesity needs to be explored in robust statistically designed studies.

Conflicts of interest of each author

None.