Is it true that Stevia or stevioside influence reproduction?
Not at all! The results of a decrease of live birth rate in rats (Planas and Kuc, 1968) by Stevia decoctions were refuted by Shiotsu (1996) who did more reliable experiments with many more animals using methods as similar as possible to the methods used by Planas and Kuc. No effect on general condition, body weight, water consumption, live birth rate or litter size was found. No effects of stevioside were found on fertility or reproduction in mice, rats or hamsters (ref.: see toxicological studies) . Whereas Melis (1999) suggested a possible decrease of the fertility of male rats by a very high dose of Stevia extract, Oliveira-Filho et al. (1989) who administered extracts with similar stevioside content stated that there is certainly not an effect on male fertility. It is not sure that the observed effects were due to the stevioside present in the extract. It should also be mentioned that the used extract concentrations were extremely high, at the start of the experiments even 5.34 % o
