Sucralose

Sucralose is a zero-calorie sweetener used to make “diet” or “zero sugar” items taste sweet without adding sugar. In fast-food settings, it most often shows up in fountain diet sodas, “zero” branded drinks, flavored teas, and some sugar-free syrups or dessert-style drinks. FDA allows sucralose, and past intake modeling found even high consumers were generally below the U.S. acceptable daily intake level. Research on long-term health effects is still debated: short-term studies often show little immediate effect on blood sugar, while longer-term weight or gut effects are less clear.

Aliases / Common Names: Sucralose, Splenda, E955, INS 955, 4,1’,6’-trichlorogalactosucrose, CAS 56038-13-2. Regulatory Status & Exposure: FDA expanded sucralose to “sweetener in foods generally” under good manufacturing practice (only as much as needed for effect) and reaffirmed a U.S. ADI of 5 mg/kg body weight/day; it estimated high-consumer intake around 2.4 mg/kg/day at the time of the expansion. JECFA lists sucralose (INS 955) with an ADI of 0–15 mg/kg bw. EU sources summarize an ADI of 15 mg/kg bw/day for sucralose. In practical fast-food exposure, the biggest swings come from how many “diet/zero” beverages and sweetened drinks someone consumes per day. Technical Evidence: A systematic review/network meta-analysis of non-nutritive sweetened beverages found no meaningful acute differences in postprandial glucose and endocrine responses versus water across several intake patterns, supporting the idea that immediate glycemic effects are usually small in controlled settings. Microbiome-focused reviews note that animal/in vitro findings can show dose- and time-dependent shifts, but most short-term human interventions using amounts below ADI report no significant gut microbiota changes; authors emphasize the need for longer and larger human studies and note possible baseline-microbiome-dependent responses. WHO’s guideline, weighing broader evidence (including observational data), recommends against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control, reflecting uncertainty about long-term benefit/risk rather than an acute toxicity finding. Fast-Food Context: For PRūF, sucralose is most relevant in beverages—fountain “diet” sodas, “zero sugar” soft drinks, sweetened iced teas, flavored waters, and some coffee/espresso add-ins (including sugar-free syrups or sweetened cream-style components), plus tabletop packets at self-serve beverage stations. Because beverages are a primary dietary source of non-nutritive sweeteners, frequent refills and large sizes can matter more than occasional use in a single sauce or dessert item. It is also commonly blended with other sweeteners in commercial drinks to better match sugar’s taste profile, which can make label scanning important for users trying to limit total non-sugar sweetener intake. Sensitive Populations / Notes: People who consume multiple large “diet/zero” beverages daily (especially smaller-bodied teens) have the most plausible path to higher relative exposure versus typical consumers. For users with GI sensitivity, the gut-microbiome evidence in humans is not definitive, but the topic remains an active research area; short-term trials below ADI are often neutral, while longer-term effects are less certain.

We assign the limited tier using published research, regulatory guidance, and PRūF’s additive taxonomy. Restaurant usage is derived from public ingredient disclosures and mapped to menu items where this additive appears.