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SUgar substitutes, once hailed as silver bullets that allow you to take your extra-sweet coffee, have received another blow. A new study published in molecules launches six sugar substitutes for causing strange DNA damage in intestinal bacteria or simply killing tiny and useful microorganisms in the body. And these chemical sweeteners are more common than you think: they are found in Splenda, diet sodas and ten widely available sports supplements.
This list of disastrous agents for your microbiome is very overwhelming: aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advesame and acesulfame potassium-K (Ace-K) all made the cut. All of these sweeteners are FDA approved, but some will seem more familiar than others – and, according to researchers' experiences of glowing bacteria that have fed these sweeteners, some are also more dangerous.
"The six FDA-approved sweeteners are the most common in non-alcoholic beverages and as food additives," says Ariel Kushmaro, Ph.D., a senior lecturer at the Department of Biotechnology's Engineering of Food and Beverage. Ben Gurion University. reverse. "We have demonstrated toxicity to bacteria and some tips for the mechanisms."
Although these chemicals are all essentially taste In the same way, the damage to intestinal bacteria varies a lot, depending on your choice of artificial sweetener.
Different sweeteners, different threats
Kushmaro's experiment used a bioluminescence technique to literally trigger alarm lights that shed light on the dangers of these artificial sweeteners for bacteria – in particular, E. coli, a bacterium present in the human gut. The team has genetically developed several strains E. coli turn on if they were exposed to something dangerous. Importantly, each individual strain has been designed to respond to a different type of threat. For example, if the sweetener tested tested DNA ("genotoxic" effect), a particular bacteria strain would be glowing. If a different sweetener was cytotoxic (meaning that it could kill cells), a different strain of bacteria would ignite.
This test revealed that saccharin was responsible for the most widespread damage, causing both genotoxic and cytotoxic effects in humans. E. coli.
Nowadays, few non-alcoholic drinks use saccharin (Tab, which uses calcium saccharin, is a popular exception), but FDA documents indicate that it can be used safely in drinks. But this research suggests that, at least for intestinal bacteria, saccharin might not be as safe after all.
The experiments also revealed that aspartame and Ace-K cause damage to the DNA in humans. E. coli. Unlike saccharin, both are relatively common. For example, Coke Zero is sweetened with a mixture of aspartame and Ace-K, as well as Fanta with orange and strawberry.
What is worrying is that Ace-K is not only found in diet sodas. It is also often used as a sweetener in sports supplements, according to Kushmaro. This led him to test the E. coli with ten different sports supplements (which the authors did not name in the document) containing As-K or sucralose, another chemical on the list. They found that each of these supplements had similar toxic effects on the E. coli as sweeteners themselves, but it's hard to say in detail what's going on because of the many contradictory components of most sports performance preparations.
Although Kushmaro's observations may be serious enough to rule you out of the artificial sweetening power, he notes that most people probably do not add enough sweetener to a cup of coffee, nor do they drink enough alcohol. Fanta food (his study indicates a milligram per milliliter). toxic level), to cause extensive damage to the microbiota.
"Human exposure is probably less than several milligrams of artificial sweeteners per milliliter, but it's every day and often several times a day," he adds.
Although these sweeteners pose serious risks, they are unlikely to start anytime soon, says Kushmaro: "The food industry is very strong and will claim that these products are safe."
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