An artificial sweetener called erythritol commonly used in processed foods is linked to heart attacks and strokes in a new study.

Via Nature:

Artificial sweeteners are widely used sugar substitutes, but little is known about their long-term effects on cardiometabolic disease risks. Here we examined the commonly used sugar substitute erythritol and atherothrombotic disease risk… Our findings reveal that erythritol is both associated with incident MACE [major adverse cardiovascular events] risk and fosters enhanced thrombosis.

“Thrombosis” is the fancy medical term for blood clots that block blood vessels and induce heart attacks and strokes because the blood supply becomes choked off. It’s not a great condition to develop.

Artificial sweeteners are implicated in numerous other undesirable health outcomes such as bladder cancer and brain tumors.

Related: Why Not Declare Obesity a ‘Public Health Emergency’?

If you’re not eating a whole foods-based, unprocessed diet low-to-moderate in carbs, you are doing it wrong. There is no “safe” substitute for sugar, and sugar itself — especially the refined kind in the form of high-fructose corn syrup present in Ding-Dongs and Skittles and whatever other culinary abominations the technocrats are inventing these days — is poison.