Artificial sweeteners may tip scales toward metabolic problems

[csziggy]

In mice and people, saccharin upsets gut microbes, glucose metabolism
by Rachel Ehrenberg
1:00pm, September 17, 2014

Eating artificial sweeteners may spur the very health problems that dieters try to avoid. A new multipronged study of mice and a small number of people finds that saccharin meddles with the gut’s microbial community, setting in motion metabolic changes that are associated with obesity and diabetes.

Other zero-calorie sweeteners may cause the same problems, researchers say September 17 in Nature.

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Until recently, most sugar substitutes were thought to pass through the gut undigested, exerting little to no effect on intestinal cells. As ingredients in diet soda, sugar-free desserts and a panoply of other foods, the sweeteners are touted as a way for people with diabetes and weight problems to enjoy a varied diet.

But the new study, led by computational biologist Eran Segal and immunologist Eran Elinav of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, suggests that rather than helping people, the sweeteners may promote problems.

More: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-tip-scales-toward-metabolic-problems

Wow! Not a good thing at all.

[davidn3600]

1. In other words...don't drink nothing but water

(assuming there isn't anything toxic in your water).

[csziggy]

2. Yes, I'm hoping that the aquifer here is not contaminated

But I mostly drink water - and coffee. I was using sugar free creamers, but noticed I was feeling bad about an hour after I finished my coffee, maybe low blood sugar. So I've switched to regular creamers and feel better.

I never drank sugar free sodas - they just taste nasty to me. Same for all sugar substitutes, except I guess coffee disguised that bad flavor in the creamers.

From now on it's plain sugar in my coffee!

[VanillaRhapsody]

3. thank goodness for my personal favorite...STEVIA!!!

and just today I found a recipe online to make home made cola syrup to use in my Soda Stream.....guess what I planned to use for sweetening?

[jeff47]

9. Um...not so much.

This study was only done with saccharine (aka Sweet-n-Low).

The various sweeteners are radically different chemically. If the effect applies to all artificial sweeteners despite their radically different chemistry, then it's going to also apply to stevia.

They also did most of their work in rats, and we already know saccharine is handled differently in rats than in humans. The "human" part of their work has some large problems (small sample size, lousy experiment design).

This study is a reason to do more studies, but we shouldn't be trumpeting any particular sweetener yet.

[VanillaRhapsody]

10. not buying......Stevia is in a completely different category....

a plant vs a chemical....

Yeah....I will stand by Stevia until you provide a shred of evidence to support what you just said......

[jeff47]

11. It's a chemical made by a plant.

It's a chemical made by a plant. Just like sucrose (table sugar), another chemical made by a plant.

Stevia works by being close enough to sugar for our bodies to taste it as sweet, but we can't digest it. Just like all other sweeteners.

If bacteria are able to convert all artificial sweeteners into a sugar we can absorb, they will do so because of that "close enough" factor. Which means the same effect will happen with stevia.

But as mentioned this study is reason to look more closely at all sweeteners. It is not a reason to come to a conclusion yet, despite the media coverage claiming it is.

[VanillaRhapsody]

14. Keep trying....yeah Stevia == Saccharine, Sucralose, and Aspartame...

Uh no...

This is like saying smoking marijuana is the same as smoking Marlboros

[jeff47]

15. Your successful ingestion of marketing material does not change reality.

The fact that some people have been saying "chemicals" with a sneer for a generation or two doesn't change that all life forms, including us, are collections of complex chemicals.

Btw, the natural chemical in the stevia plant looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Steviol_structure.svg

Humans take that, and do some (duh duh duuuuhhhh) chemistry to turn it into this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Stevioside.svg

But please, let's listen to Cargill about just how natural something is.

Cargill, the manufacturer of Truvia, has had litigation brought against it in two separate class-action lawsuits in 2013. The suits claimed that Cargill was deceptive in its marketing of Truvia as a "natural" sweetener citing the fact that the stevia leaf extract and erythritol ingredients they used were "highly processed" and that erythritol, which composes the majority of the product, is manufactured using GMOs.[13][14] While the FDA has been generally ambiguous about its opinion of the use of "natural" as a qualifier for food, Cargill decided to settle out of court.

[Silent3]

16. You seem to be laboring under the assumption...

...that there's some clear, bright line between "chemical" and "natural", or "artificial" and "natural".

[VanillaRhapsody]

18. How about the difference between a one ingredient plant product

vs a processed god-knows-what combination?

I will stick with the plant thanks!

[Silent3]

19. One ingredient?

Do you know anything about organic chemistry whatsoever?

[jwirr]

4. Looks like my daughter was right. She is a respitory therapist and has been encouraging me not to

use artificial sweetners for years for diabetes. I am actually down to one med for diabetes and maintaining a 7.2 AIC.

One of the reasons my daughter is so against too many meds is because she sees them causing a lot of problems for her patients.

[csziggy]

5. She's seeing a correlation between artificial sweeteners and respiratory problems?

Hmm. I've been having some breathing problems but it seems a little better since I stopped using the no sugar creamers. I wonder if that is what has caused this?

I think my next step will be to give up coffee altogether but caffeine will be hard to quit. My husband has started drinking green tea, but I find the flavor unappealing. I'm afraid it would take a lot of honey to make it taste good - and adding any sweetener to my diet is not a good thing no matter how natural!

[Lars39]

7. I started drinking green tea with honey, then started using less and less honey until it tasted ok

Last edited Mon Sep 22, 2014, 09:30 PM - Edit history (1)

without any honey at all in it.
Prince of Peace is my preferred brand.

[Silent3]

6. "may", "are associated with", etc.

These are words that at most recommend caution, and the need for further study, not "I knew I was right!!!" reactions from people so very certain of their anti-this, anti-that puritanism about food.

I've lost plenty of weight, and have been keeping it off for over two years now, and I drink a fair amount of diet soda, along with just plain water, seltzer water, and unsweetened iced tea.

I've kept weight off for as long as 7-8 years before in my life, also drinking diet soda, and only the loss of a telecommuting job and losing time to a long drive broke my good exercise and eating habits -- the diet soda was never a problem.

Could artificial sweeteners be a problem for other people? Sure. But even for those people, it's like a matter of "the dose makes the poison".

But all it takes is a few "mays" and "are associated withs" for the self-righteous crusaders to feel smugly self assured that their strident zero tolerance policies have always been fully justified.

[jeff47]

8. Also, they only studied saccharine (Sweet-n-Low)

The various sweeteners are radically different chemically. So you can't assume something that applies to one applies to them all.

Also, most of their work was done in rats, and we already know that saccharine is metabolized differently in rats than humans - it gives rats bladder cancer. It does this by interacting with a protein that humans do not have.

Plus the "human" part of their study is pretty poor - small sample size, and really weird experiment design that relied heavily on self-selection and self-reporting.

[Nye Bevan]

12. Nutrasweet (aspartame) gives me a headache.

And I can't stand the taste of it.

[jeff47]

13. Article vastly overstates the study

First, the study only dealt with saccharine. The article claims all artificial sweeteners. Um, no. They're radically different chemically, so you can't assume the same effect will occur in all sweeteners.

Second, most of their work was in rats. We already know saccharine is metabolized different in rats than in humans. Thus, can't assume that an effect of saccharine in rats will also happen in humans.

Third, the human part of their study had a small sample size, and a rather odd methodology - it relied heavily on self-reporting, and essentially a self-selected group. Kinda odd when you could do a really, really easy experiment:

Have subjects fast for 12 hours, measure blood sugar. Feed 1/2 the subjects something sweetened with sucrose (table sugar). Feed the other half something sweetened with saccharine. Measure their blood sugar every 30 mins for an hour or two. If blood sugar changes in both groups are similar, you've shown this gut bacteria effect happens in humans....for saccharine. You'll need to repeat it for other sweeteners.

[6000eliot]

17. I lost 90 pounds substituting artificial sweetener for sugar, and I've kept it off.