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Non-nutritive sweeteners have made the claim that they can provide all the sweetness of sugar without any calories since the late 1800s. Researchers who published their findings in the journal Cell on August 19 challenge the long-held belief that these sugar substitutes have no impact on humans. They discovered that some of them can actually alter consumers' microbiomes, which can affect their blood sugar levels.
The Weizmann Institute of Science and the German National Cancer Center (DKFZ) immunologist and microbiome researcher Eran Elinav, the study's senior author, and his team discovered in 2014 that non-nutritive sweeteners altered the microbiomes of mice in ways that might have an impact on their glycemic responses. If these findings held true for humans as well, the team was curious. The research team carefully screened over 1300 people for those who strictly avoid non-nutritive sweeteners in their daily lives, and they found a cohort of 120 people to answer this crucial question. Six groups were created from these participants: two were controls, and four consumed amounts of aspartame, saccharin, stevia, or sucralose that were significantly below the daily limits recommended by the FDA. "We were able to spot very clear differences in the composition and operation of gut microbes as well as the molecules they secrete into peripheral blood in subjects who consumed the non-nutritive sweeteners. This seemed to indicate that each of these sweeteners has some effect on human gut microbes "Elinav says. "We discovered that two non-nutritive sweeteners, saccharin and sucralose, had a notable effect on glucose tolerance in healthy adults when we examined consumers of non-nutritive sweeteners as a group. It's interesting to note that alterations in people's glycemic responses were strongly correlated with changes in the microbes." The researchers transferred microbial samples from the study participants to germ-free mice, which have been raised in completely sterile conditions and lack any microbiomes of their own, in order to establish causation. Elinav claims that "the results were quite striking." "When we transferred the microbiome of the top responder individuals collected at a time point in which they were consuming the respective non-nutritive sweeteners into these sterile mice, the recipient mice developed glycemic alterations that very significantly mirrored those of the donor individuals in all of the non-nutritive sweetener groups but in none of the controls. In contrast, the microbiomes of the bottom responders were typically unable to trigger such glycemic responses "He adds. These findings "indicate that, occasionally, glycemic changes in consumers may be induced in a highly personalized manner by the microbiome changes in response to human consumption of non-nutritive sweetener." Elinav claims that because of the incredibly distinctive makeup of our microbiome, he anticipates that the effects of the sweeteners will differ from person to person. "The fact that artificial sweeteners are not as harmless to humans as we once thought needs to be brought to light. Having said that, it still merits further long-term research to determine the clinical health implications of any changes they may cause in humans." In the interim, Elinav says, "We need to keep looking for ways to satisfy our sweet tooth craving while avoiding sugar, which is obviously most detrimental to our metabolic health." "In my opinion, sticking to water seems to be the best course of action." (ANI)
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