Artificial Sweeteners Really Screwup Your Gut Flora

Aspartame, saccharin, stevia, and sucralose make concerning changes to your microbiome, according to new research.

We all love sugar, but our excessive consumption of it is killing us. Global obesity has almost tripled since 1975, according to the WHO. They also claim 39% of adults (1.9 billion) are overweight, 13% of adults (650 million) are obese, and 340 million children over 5 years old are either obese or overweight. Even children under 5 are being affected, with 39 million being well beyond a healthy weight for their age. Our excessive sugar consumption is also directly linked with increased risk of hyperglycemia, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, among many other health problems shortening our lifespans. The main culprit is our sugar-laden diet.

So many have sought sugar alternatives to satisfy their sweet tooth and reduce potential health problems. Artificial sweeteners or non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) like aspartame, saccharin, stevia, and sucralose are the most popular options for the simple reason that they’re calorie free. Since saccharin, the first of its kind, was accidentally created in 1879 by a chemist working with coal tar, artificial sweeteners were thought to be inert, having no affect on the human body. New research, though, shows this is not the case.

The authors of a new study published in the journal Cell chose 120 people who rarely consumed artificial sweeteners and fed most of them small amounts of these artificial sweeteners over a 2 week period. The participants were split into 6 groups, 2 control groups who were given placebos and 4 test groups given the artificial sweeteners. What they found brings their continued consumption into question.

Their study revealed that artificial sweeteners in the 4 test groups “significantly and distinctly altered the human intestinal and oral microbiome, as would be expected for these chemically diverse compounds.” Our microbiome is a collection of trillions of microorganisms living in our body, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, among others. While we don’t fully understand how this complex ecosystem affects the body, a growing body of research suggests that a healthy microbiome is likely essential to our well-being. Links have been found between our microbiomes and diabetes, autism, anxiety, obesity, sleeping habits, medication response, immunoresponse, etc. The researchers couldn’t conclude that artificial sweeteners directly affected the link to any of these, but they caution that such clear “changes in the composition and function of the gut biome” is likely doing much more harm than good.

To make matters worse, the researchers found that saccharin and sucralose significantly impair glycemic response. This means the body struggles to process blood sugar, in much the same way as the bodies of those with diabetes. Excess blood sugar can lead to heart disease, kidney failure, vision loss, cognitive impairment, nerve damage, infections, etc.

To double check their results, the researchers transferred samples of the participants’ microbiomes to healthy mice, and the mice responded similarly to their human counterparts. They said “by performing extensive fecal transplantation of human microbiomes into GF mice, we demonstrate a causal and individualized link between NNS-altered microbiomes and glucose intolerance developing in non-NNS-consuming recipient mice.” This suggests that the artificial sweeteners are the cause and not due to the participants’ individual physiologies.

3 Surprising Lessons From the World’s Largest Nutrition Study

Artificial sweeteners are everywhere, from soft drinks to bread, from yogurt to cereal. They’re seemingly impossible to avoid. One multi-national study found that over 50% of children regularly consume artificial sweeteners, and in countries that have laws to enforce labeling sugar and calorie content on products, the numbers were even higher. This is because products marketed as low calorie or low sugar, almost inevitably means they contain artificial sweeteners to match the flavor expectations of modern consumers.

We evolved to crave sugar due to its caloric content, meaning it’s a great source of energy. But the modern world has enabled us to produce and consume it in unnatural amounts, leading to an array of health problems. Our solution of creating sugar alternatives, though, seems to be problematic as well.