Is stevia toxic?
Find the answer to this critical question about stevia here.

More and more people are discovering stevia. So, naturally, they're asking the question, Is stevia toxic?

Despite numerous toxicity tests conducted on stevia, none have shown any harmful effects. Stevia is native to South America, and has been used there for centuries. Many other countries, such as Japan and Brazil, have been using the stevia extract (stevioside) to sweeten their foods for decades and there have been no harmful effects reported.

The Japanese conducted extensive safety tests before they approved its use in commercial food products. No toxic effects were shown, and this is why it was approved by the Japanese, and has continued to be used in Japanese food products for decades.

According to Dr. Daniel Mowrey MD, an herbalist and scientist, "Almost every toxicity test imaginable has been performed on Stevia extract [concentrate] or stevioside at one time or another. The results are always negative. No abnormalities in weight change, food intake, cell or membrane characteristics, enzyme and substrate utilization, or chromosome characteristics. No cancer, no birth defects, no acute and no chronic untoward effects. Nothing."

Dr. Ray Sahelian, MD, who published several books about stevia, says in his Stevia Cookbook:

"Stevia has been used as a sweetening ingredient in foods and drinks by South American natives for many centuries, and there is no report of any plant toxicity to the consumers (Suttajit, 1993). Stevia has been added to a number of food products in Japan since the mid 1970s. No indications of any significant side effects have yet been reported after more than 20 years of use. Similarly, no reports of any adverse reactions to stevia have been reported in the United States."

Dr. Sahelian presents a very balanced viewpoint on stevia on his website. If you would like to do further reading on this subject, I recommend you visit his site.

There has been some question regarding the possible carcinogenic (or cancer-causing) effect of stevia in rats. But in a 1997 study of stevia using rats as test subjects, there were no adverse effects.

Here's the most recent research to answer the question, Is stevia toxic? According to a study published in 2003 in the Phytochemistry journal: "Acute and subacute toxicity studies revealed a very low toxicity of Stevia and stevioside." Read the abstract for yourself at PubMed.

So there you have it. The question, Is stevia toxic?, has been definitively answered.

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