IFB Prof. Pierre Singer, Director of the Nutrition Research Institute at Beilinson Hospital, on the consumption of processed meat/photo: Machi Hoff, editing: Nir Chen
It may not surprise you that preservatives are unhealthy, but could they be dangerous?
A common preservative used in food products from beer to hot dogs to cheese has the potential to interact with the human gut microbiome in unexpected and possibly harmful ways, according to new research published in ACS Chemical Biology.
These latest findings, from researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, raise further questions about whether preservatives designed to kill pathogens in food may also harm our internal bacterial mix.
"Nisin is, in essence, an antibiotic that has been added to our food for a long time, but its effect on our gut bacteria has not been well studied until now," says microbiologist Jeanron Zhang, from the University of Chicago.
Although nisin may be very effective in preventing food contamination, it may have a greater effect on our human gut bacteria."
Sausages on a barbecue/ShutterStock, val lawless
"We repeat and emphasize how important it is to know what we put into our bodies and how important it is to read the food labels of the food we purchase. This study only reinforces this importance," says Dr. Dalit Driman Medina, a specialist in family medicine.
The team of researchers from the University of Chicago created six nisin-like substances and tested their effect on both beneficial and harmful bacteria taken from the human gut. Each of the six antibiotics led to different results, but all of them affected both the beneficial and harmful bacteria from the human gut.
"It is still not possible to definitively say what their effect is of substances that protect our gut, but this study demonstrates that the tested substance has the ability to affect the gut microbiome in a way that could not have been foreseen," explains Dr. Driman.
"According to the main researcher who carried out the study, this is the first study to demonstrate that the beneficial bacteria in the gut are sensitive to the antibiotic nisin, and that they are sometimes more sensitive than the harmful bacteria in the gut."
Dr. Driman adds that "with the amounts used in this antibiotic in the food industry, it is very likely that it harms the health of our intestines.
If in the past food preservation was done with means such as salt or alcohol, in recent years these traditional methods have been replaced by modern preservatives, among them the antibiotic nisin.
In recent years, more and more studies have been accumulating indicating that the modern food industry does not contribute to our health.
The current study joins these testimonies and shows that the antibiotic nisin can harm the balance of bacteria in our intestines and, as a result, harm the health of the intestine and the whole body."
More on the same topic:
Microbiome
germs
Intestines
Processed food
Preservatives