Artificial sweeteners may promote diabetes, claim scientists
Controversial research suggests artificial sweeteners may raise blood sugar levels by promoting growth of certain gut bacteria.
Artificial sweeteners may contribute to soaring levels of diabetes, according to a controversial study that suggests the additives could exacerbate the problem they are meant to tackle.
Artificial sweeteners may contribute to soaring levels of diabetes, according to a controversial study that suggests the additives could exacerbate the problem they are meant to tackle.
Researchers in Israel found that artificial sweeteners used in diet
drinks and other foods can disrupt healthy microbes that live in the
gut, leading to higher blood sugar levels – an early sign of diabetes.
Sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose are widespread in western diets and are often used to cut calories or prevent tooth decay. The additives are so common that scientists behind the latest study called for a reassessment of the “massive usage” of the chemicals.
“Our findings suggest that non-caloric artificial sweeteners may have directly contributed to enhancing the exact epidemic that they themselves were intended to fight,” the authors write in the journal Nature.
Eran Elinav, a senior author on the study at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, said that while the evidence against the sweeteners was too weak to change health policies, he had decided to give them up.
But the study has left many experts unconvinced. The findings draw largely on tests of just one sweetener in mice, raising doubts about their relevance for people, and to other sweeteners. Large studies in humans have found that sugar substitutes can help people maintain a healthy weight and protect against diabetes.
“This new report must be viewed very cautiously,” said Stephen O’Rahilly, director of the Metabolic Diseases Unit at Cambridge University, “as it mostly reports findings in mice, accompanied by human studies so small as to be difficult to interpret.”
Brian Ratcliffe, professor of nutrition at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said: “Most of the effects that they report relate to saccharin with little or no effect of aspartame. Their paper ought to be limited to ‘saccharin’ in the title rather than attributing the effects to all artificial sweeteners.”
The UK is poised to fall in line with World Health Organisation recommendations to halve sugar intake to 5% of daily calories, a move expected to drive sales of diet drinks and low-calorie foods.
In the first of a series of experiments, the Israeli group found that mice fed on three artificial sweeteners – saccharin, aspartame and sucralose – developed high blood sugar levels. But when the mice were given antibiotics to kill off their gut microbes, the ill effects disappeared.
The scientists then focused on saccharin. They transferred gut microbes from mice fed on the sweetener to different mice that had no gut bacteria of their own. Soon after, the recipient mice developed high blood sugar levels themselves. Genetic analyses of the gut microbes from mice fed on saccharin found that as a group they behaved differently, breaking down more carbohydrate in the diet than normal.
The scientists ran tests on 400 people and found that those who consumed the most artificial sweeteners had different gut microbes than others, and on average were heavier and more glucose intolerant.
In their final set of experiments, the scientists gave seven people the maximum allowed daily dose of saccharin for a week. Each dose was enough to sweeten around 40 cans of diet cola. At the end of the week, four in seven had high blood sugar levels and their gut microbes mirrored the changes seen in mice fed on the additives.
To round off the study, the researchers transferred bugs from the people who developed high blood sugar after massive doses of artificial sweeteners into mice that had no gut bugs of their own. These mice went on to develop high blood sugar too.
According to Elinav, the study shows that artificial sweeteners may contribute to higher blood sugar in mice and some people. One possible explanation is that artificial sweeteners let some microbes thrive at the expense of others, leaving a population that extracts more energy from the diet than normal.
“This large body of work we’ve performed should be studied further because of the potentially harmful effects that could be happening from sweetener consumption to very large subsets of the population,” said Eran Segal, a co-author of the paper.
There are studies that report more diabetes among people who consume lots of diet drinks. But in many cases it is impossible to work out what is to blame. Lots of people are already fat and on course to develop diabetes when they turn to diet drinks to lose weight.
Nita Forouhi, head of nutritional epidemiology at Cambridge, said the study suggested artificial sweeteners were not the “innocent magic bullets” they were intended to be. “But it does not yet provide sufficient evidence to alter public health and clinical practice,” she said.
Christopher Corpe of King’s College London, who studies how the gut senses sugars, said that future work needed to draw on much larger numbers of healthy and obese or diabetic people who consume more realistic amounts of artificial sweeteners.
Sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose are widespread in western diets and are often used to cut calories or prevent tooth decay. The additives are so common that scientists behind the latest study called for a reassessment of the “massive usage” of the chemicals.
“Our findings suggest that non-caloric artificial sweeteners may have directly contributed to enhancing the exact epidemic that they themselves were intended to fight,” the authors write in the journal Nature.
Eran Elinav, a senior author on the study at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, said that while the evidence against the sweeteners was too weak to change health policies, he had decided to give them up.
But the study has left many experts unconvinced. The findings draw largely on tests of just one sweetener in mice, raising doubts about their relevance for people, and to other sweeteners. Large studies in humans have found that sugar substitutes can help people maintain a healthy weight and protect against diabetes.
“This new report must be viewed very cautiously,” said Stephen O’Rahilly, director of the Metabolic Diseases Unit at Cambridge University, “as it mostly reports findings in mice, accompanied by human studies so small as to be difficult to interpret.”
Brian Ratcliffe, professor of nutrition at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said: “Most of the effects that they report relate to saccharin with little or no effect of aspartame. Their paper ought to be limited to ‘saccharin’ in the title rather than attributing the effects to all artificial sweeteners.”
The UK is poised to fall in line with World Health Organisation recommendations to halve sugar intake to 5% of daily calories, a move expected to drive sales of diet drinks and low-calorie foods.
In the first of a series of experiments, the Israeli group found that mice fed on three artificial sweeteners – saccharin, aspartame and sucralose – developed high blood sugar levels. But when the mice were given antibiotics to kill off their gut microbes, the ill effects disappeared.
The scientists then focused on saccharin. They transferred gut microbes from mice fed on the sweetener to different mice that had no gut bacteria of their own. Soon after, the recipient mice developed high blood sugar levels themselves. Genetic analyses of the gut microbes from mice fed on saccharin found that as a group they behaved differently, breaking down more carbohydrate in the diet than normal.
The scientists ran tests on 400 people and found that those who consumed the most artificial sweeteners had different gut microbes than others, and on average were heavier and more glucose intolerant.
In their final set of experiments, the scientists gave seven people the maximum allowed daily dose of saccharin for a week. Each dose was enough to sweeten around 40 cans of diet cola. At the end of the week, four in seven had high blood sugar levels and their gut microbes mirrored the changes seen in mice fed on the additives.
To round off the study, the researchers transferred bugs from the people who developed high blood sugar after massive doses of artificial sweeteners into mice that had no gut bugs of their own. These mice went on to develop high blood sugar too.
According to Elinav, the study shows that artificial sweeteners may contribute to higher blood sugar in mice and some people. One possible explanation is that artificial sweeteners let some microbes thrive at the expense of others, leaving a population that extracts more energy from the diet than normal.
“This large body of work we’ve performed should be studied further because of the potentially harmful effects that could be happening from sweetener consumption to very large subsets of the population,” said Eran Segal, a co-author of the paper.
There are studies that report more diabetes among people who consume lots of diet drinks. But in many cases it is impossible to work out what is to blame. Lots of people are already fat and on course to develop diabetes when they turn to diet drinks to lose weight.
Nita Forouhi, head of nutritional epidemiology at Cambridge, said the study suggested artificial sweeteners were not the “innocent magic bullets” they were intended to be. “But it does not yet provide sufficient evidence to alter public health and clinical practice,” she said.
Christopher Corpe of King’s College London, who studies how the gut senses sugars, said that future work needed to draw on much larger numbers of healthy and obese or diabetic people who consume more realistic amounts of artificial sweeteners.
Recent research suggests that artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose may cause diabetes by promoting growth of certain gut bacteria.
ResponderEliminarWhat a suprise, isn't it?
Stevia, which comes from the herb Stevia rebaudiana, is widely used as a sweetener around the world and is safe for diabetics. Unlike most other sweeteners, stevia can even be grown in a home garden.It's 30 times sweeter than sugar! Some studies show that it decreases blood sugar levels and controls weight.
Despite all this benefits, in Spain and other european countries, this plant cannot be sold and or you cannot buy their leaves.
Why? Diabetics and hypertensive patients represent the majority of revenues of the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical industry is strongly against stevia and says that may not be safe (Even though it has been used for centuries in countries like Brasil.Cocacola uses it!).
Why? Because pharmaceutical industry does not want to cure diseases, this organisation prefers diseases to be chronic in order to have benefits. It's all about money!
Why allow a cheap natural sweetener? What happens with all sugar and artificial sweeteners industry?
So, what do you think about this "sweet" topic?
I think we should not jump into conclusions although it’s a subject worth studying. It is true that 4 out of 7 people who were given the maximum daily dose eventually had high blood sugar levels, but let’s not disregard the fact that each daily dose was equivalent to 40 cans of diet cola, which is absurd.
ResponderEliminarI’m a little sceptic about it, but I do agree there should be more studies, because the purpose of people consuming this kind of artificial sweeteners is because they are told it’s healthy, and if not, it should be known.
It is weird that Stevia being the natural alternative to artificial sweeteners, it´s not approved in some countries, although not as much studies have been performed with this alternative, the ones that did showed to be safe. And in comparison by the others talked in the article and approved in those countries, Aspartame was accused of causing everything from weight gain to cancer, Sucralose was also once accused to negatively impact the immune system.
First of all, I have a little doubt. The article says that microbes from mice fed on artificial sweeteners broke more carbohydrate from the diet. Does it mean that they cause hypoglycemia? And that the body has to release glucose reserves to compensate it, rising the blood sugar level ? I got the general idea of the article, but I got a bit lost in this part.
ResponderEliminarI think that the study made in humans doesn' seem to show solid results. In my opinion, the sample was too small to be representative of the general population, and the sweetener dose that was given was much higher than the usual consumed. So, I agree with Luis here: we should wait for clear evidence before warning public health.
On the other hand, the study made in mice shows strong evidence of the harmful effects of artificial sweeteners; and I think that it should make us worry. This results are also a good reason to make further investigations about this topic.
I agree with ester when she says that the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want people to use a healthy, natural alterative to artificial sweeteners. Would you want something that can reduce the profits you make selling insuline and other diabetes medication? Of course not.
Under my point of view, I find this article so interesting due to it´s very current.
ResponderEliminarNowadays, beacuse of beauty canons imposed, people are very obsessed with the weight and they are put into hands of hypocaloric diets, many of them are based on the intake of synthetic products that claim to provide fewer calories than natural products that try to resemble.
So they are created synthetic substitutes to sugar under the promise that have the same flavor than sugar but with less calories (for me it´s erroneous).
Maybe, you lose weight, but many detrimental effects become worse for health.
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderEliminarCurrently, diabetes and obesity have become the major epidemic of developed countries. The diabetes produces an increase of patient comorbidity, in addition to reducing their quality of life and years of life. For all this, you should continue with this line of research, to determine and to say with certainty the impact of sweeteners in humans.
ResponderEliminarPersonally, I think this research should go ahead and study the adverse effects of sweeteners on gut bacteria and if these effects increase blood sugar levels with certainty.
If this proves to be true, it should take measures and act accordingly, given that we could decrease the number of people with diabetes.
Because if it is determined that sweeteners predispose to diabetes should not be consuming, especially in vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, pregnant women, obese and people with genetic predisposition.
All these studies cited in the article are not powerful enough, because the number of people is very small and most have used mice instead of humans. What it suggests is that there is a relationship between artificial sweeteners and increase or predisposition to diabetes, so that, new studies should be oriented determine in the type of relationship, how strong it is, if the repercussion is dose dependent, and how to avoid.
The results of the new studies could lead to a revolution in diet and the current way of understanding food.
According to my classmates and this article i think that we need more information about sweeteners because this isn't enough.
ResponderEliminarIs not the first time that i hear that saccharin is not good to the health, but we need a representative study to prove it.
Diabetes is a very big problem who affects 300 millions of people around the world, above all in the developed countries, and I sure that a lot of them would be interested in participate in a study that can help to describe better the effects of the sweeteners.
Diabetes is very associated with obesity, and this have to be considered in the new study because it can upset the results. So I think we have to have at least two groups of people, some with a healthy weight and others with obesity, and they take the same quantity of sweetener and finally compare the results, and the same with the others.
I agree with Ester and Nuria that the pharmaceuticals seek only become chronic diseases for their own financial gain, rather than cure such diseases and engage in research and cure many others that we currently do not have treatment and this effort would be rewarded and would benefit the entire population.
So I think there are a lot of job to do about this problem.
I think it’s an interesting subject but it hasn’t enough conclusions. Reading this article I notice that we don't know anything about saccharin and all the others artificial sweetners, why? Everybody knows that artificial suggar helps us and prevents diabetes but, is that right?
ResponderEliminarBefore reading this, I thought we knew all about this suggar alternative but, when I finished I have to admit there're lots of things we don't know about them.
So, I think this article talks about something in social culture we know a bit different. We know saccharin helps to prevent diabetes and we have never thought about the possibility it has to have negative characteristics.
It's so surprising to read an article which sets out artificial sweeteners and their additives components can increase the risk to suffer diabetes and it can make the prognostic of this be worse. In addition, it's surprising to know sweeteners maybe increase the number and thrive of gut bacteria.
Due to all of this I think we are on the way to study this artificial sweetners and we still have a long way to go.
Finally, I have a question: the mass media are sending these products like a cure in front of this pathology. Do they know the same as us or do they know the truth but they aren’t saying anything? Why?
I think we will never know it, as well as we won't know if the pharmaceutic industry creates chronic diseases.
Diabetes, because of its prevalence, it is one of the most important diseases and that is why I do think all debates related to it, are necessary.
ResponderEliminarWith regard to what you guys have said, I would like to say that I really appreciate your views since they have made me aware of things I did not know.
About the conclusions of the article, of course we need more research about this topic, it is just an article, so maybe not enough to reach conclusions. However, this does not mean that the article is not properly done. This article has been published in the best scientific journal in the world, which is Nature so, either suggesting that the sample of the study is not large enough or that the methods and conclusions are not solid, I do think it is a huge mistake.
The part of the study in which scientists gave seven people the maximum allowed daily dose of saccharin for a week (Around 40 cans of diet cola.) it is just one of many experiments those scientists did with humans and in the other experiments, the association between artificial sweeteners and high blood sugar levels was seen too.
To sum up, we need more research, especially in humans, related to the effects of artificial sweeteners before reaching conclusions about them. Despite this, it would not be a surprise if the artificial sweeteners do not decrease but increase blood sugar levels because of pharmaceutical industry's interest to have chronic diseases instead of curing them. In the meantime, I prefer stevia for me and my relatives.