The Telegraph
Sarah Knapton
Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:
“I remember having a chat with a chemist, when I began to formulate my functional drinks almost 10 years ago. The debate was about using sugar, given we know that too much sugar is definitely not good for health, versus the use of sweeteners in particular artificial sweeteners which had started to rise in popularity and have increased enormously since the introduction of the UK sugar tax regime, prompting commercial companies to reduce the level of sugar in their products, but at the cost of introducing artificial sweeteners. I managed to convince this particular chemist that my thoughts about not using artificial sweeteners was worthwhile pursuing, I’m glad I did.
Like much research some of it is conflicting and the jury was out in regard to whether or not there was a negative effect from artificial sweeteners on the control of blood glucose. The research below from Israel and Germany suggest that it is the effect of sweeteners on the gut microbiome that seems to be causal, by significantly changing blood glucose tolerance in healthy adults.
As I’ve pointed out before, that in this age of so-called evidence-based medicine, it’s frustrating to have to wait years for research to back up your gut instinct!
My recent blogs about the negative effect of artificial sweeteners include”
https://www.thehealthequation.co.uk/coffee-drinkers-even-those-with-a-sweet-tooth-live-longer/
https://www.thehealthequation.co.uk/artificial-sweeteners-raise-cancer-risk/
https://www.thehealthequation.co.uk/sweeteners-could-be-sabotaging-that-diet/
The research was conducted by Prof Eran Elinav immunologist and Microbiome researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and at the German National Cancer Centre.
The study of 120 regular users of the additive, published in the journal Cell Press, found alterations in gut microbes that may affect glucose tolerance. Saccharine and sucralose, in particular, were found to significantly change blood sugar tolerance in healthy adults.
“In subjects consuming non-nutritive sweeteners, we could identify very distinct changes in the composition and the function of gut microbes and the molecules they secrete into peripheral blood”
Researchers implanted samples of the sweetener-users gut microbiome from human subjects into mice, which also became glucose intolerant proving that effect was causal.