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Israeli researchers discovered how sugar substitutes affect our body. And it's worrying - voila! health

2022-08-19T15:53:51.650Z


A new study by the Weizmann Institute reveals that sugar substitutes affect the composition and activity of intestinal bacteria and may disrupt our metabolism. Here are all the details


Israeli researchers discovered how sugar substitutes affect our body.

And that's worrying

Many people think that calorie-free sweeteners are a healthy choice, but new research from the Weizmann Institute reveals that sugar substitutes affect the composition and activity of gut bacteria and may disrupt our metabolism.

Here are all the details

Voila system!

health

08/19/2022

Friday, August 19, 2022, 6:00 p.m. Updated: 6:48 p.m.

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affect the metabolism.

Sugar substitutes (Photo: ShutterStock)

In recent years, more and more people are aware of the harms of sugar and its addictive effect, and choose to reduce or avoid its consumption.

And that's great.

The problem is that many do it with the help of sugar substitutes, which is already less healthy.

Over the years, the health profile of artificial sweeteners, which are found in many products we consume today, has been studied a lot.

The results were not uniform, but many of them raised cause for concern.

Now an Israeli study has been able to prove that calorie-free sweeteners affect the composition and activity of intestinal bacteria and may disrupt the body's metabolism.



The new study by Weizmann Institute of Science scientists shows that sugar substitutes may have a harmful effect on the human body.

The research findings, which were published today (Friday) in the scientific journal Cell, reveal that prominent sugar substitutes may affect the intestinal bacteria (microbiome) and consequently blood sugar levels in humans.

The extent of this effect varies from person to person, just as the composition of the microbiome is unique to each person.

Instead of preventing the rise of sugar in the body - they do the opposite

Already in 2014, the institute's scientists were able to prove that artificial sweeteners change the composition of the intestinal bacteria of mice, and that instead of preventing the increase in blood sugar, as would be expected, they cause the opposite result.

Eight years later, the research team led by Prof. Eran Alinev from the Department of Systemic Immunology, presented a similar picture in humans.



The researchers surveyed 1,400 candidates and selected 120 volunteers from among them who testified that they do not consume sugar substitutes at all.

The volunteers were divided into six groups - in four of them the participants were asked to consume one of four sugar substitutes (saccharin, sucralose, aspartame and stevia) for two weeks.

The remaining two groups served as control groups.

Each of the sweeteners caused a change in the composition of the intestinal bacteria.

Stevia (Photo: ShutterStock)

The scientists found that all four sweeteners, each in its own way, caused a change in the composition of the intestinal bacteria and in the substances that the bacteria secrete into the bloodstream.

Saccharin and sucralose even caused a significant change in the volunteers' tolerance to glucose, that is, the body's ability to handle a sugar load.

In the control groups, there were no changes in the composition and activity of the intestinal bacteria, nor in glucose tolerance.



According to the researchers, there is a close correlation between the changes that occurred in the composition of the intestinal bacteria and disruption of glucose tolerance.

"Our findings strengthen the concept that the microbiome is a kind of 'control center' that synchronizes signals coming from the inside, from the body's own systems, and signals coming from the outside, from factors such as food, drugs, lifestyle and the environment in which we live," says Prof. Alinev.

More in Walla!

5 things that can happen to you if you stop diet drinks

To the full article

And that's not the end of the research.

In order to examine whether the changes in the intestinal bacteria were indeed responsible for the disruption in metabolism, the researchers implanted in groups of microbiome-free mice, samples of intestinal bacteria taken from about 40 of the participants in the experiment.

The samples were taken from participants from the different experimental groups, where the greatest changes in glucose tolerance were found, as well as from participants where the metabolic changes were the smallest.



The results were clear: the mice developed a metabolic pattern similar to that observed in their human donor.

In other words, the mice implanted with bacterial samples from participants who showed the greatest change in glucose tolerance themselves exhibited the greatest disruption in glucose tolerance, while mice implanted with samples from participants who showed little change in glucose tolerance or implanted with samples from the control group exhibited the smallest metabolic changes. .

No, this does not mean that sugar is better for you

"Sugar substitutes are calorie-free, but they are not without an effect on the human body. In the study we showed that sugar substitutes change the composition and activity of the intestinal bacteria and as a result may also damage the body's metabolism," says Prof. Alinev, "in order to assess the long-term health effect of sugar substitutes, additional long-term experiments are required. It must be emphasized that one should not conclude from the findings that sugar consumption is superior to sugar substitute consumption, and that the harm to human health from sugar consumption is backed by evidence from many studies."

"The damage to health from sugar consumption is backed by evidence from many studies."

Adding sugar to the drink (Photo: Giphy)

As mentioned, this is not the first time that researchers find that sugar substitutes may have a high health cost.

A study published six months ago in PLOS Medicine indicated that some artificial sweeteners are associated with an increased risk of cancer.

The researchers found that subjects who consumed larger amounts of artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame and acesulfame-K, which are 200 times sweeter than sugar and found among other things in popular diet drinks, had a 13 percent higher risk of cancer compared to those who did not consume sweeteners at all.



Another study published last year found that drinking diet drinks is just as harmful to health as regular sugary drinks.

According to the study conducted at the University of Zhengzhou in China, the damage in question translates into a shortening of life expectancy - both those who drink drinks that contain sugar and those who stick to drinks without sugar, but with artificial sweeteners, increase their risk of dying at a younger age.

  • health

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Tags

  • artificial sweeteners

  • Sugar

  • Microbiome

  • good bacteria

Source: walla

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