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Diabetes, Cardio-Metabolic Newsletter
Artificial Sweeteners
A 74-year-old woman was seen for endocrine consultation, after admission for bronchitis, Type 2 Diabetes, and hypertension. She had been treated
A recent study has concluded that low-calorie sweeteners, including sucralose, are not associated with increased cravings.In the study,
11/10/14
researchers
set out to determine if low-calorie sweeteners would cause increased sweet cravings when compared to sugar. They conducted
four separate experiments, each with around 400 participants. In the experiments, each participant drank water mixed with sugar or mixed
with diThey were then asked to rate their perceived sweetness of the samples on a scale from 0 to 100, with 100 being the sweetest
sensation they could imagine.The results found that the various low-calorie sweeteners such as sucralose did not have greater sweet
sensations, or cause cravings, when compared to sugar. The researchers concluded that, “Our data indicate that NNS [non-nutritive
sweeteners] are not super-stimuli with regard to perceived sweetness intensity. That is, although NNS may have greater binding affinity to
sweet receptors, this does not imply NNS over stimulate sweet receptors as has been implied previously.” Finally, they added that “present
data suggest that NNS do not result in deleterious health effects by over-stimulating sweet taste receptors to produce hyper-intense sweet
sensations.”While there have been speculations that low-calorie sweeteners cause people to gain weight because they lead to consumers
craving sweets, these research results provide further evidence that low-calorie sweeteners do not overpower peoples’ taste buds or lead
them to crave sweeter foods. Further, these results support previous scientific literature that suggest low-calorie sweeteners can assist people
in losing and managing their weight while allowing them to enjoy the foods they love..Antenucci RG, Hayes JE. Nonnutritive sweeteners are not
supernormal stimuli. Int J Obes, 2014; doi: 10.1038/ijo.2014.109.
MY COMMENTARY: Against nay-sayers who object to these sweeteners
Artificial Sweeteners May Disrupt Body’s Blood Sugar ControlsBy KENNETH CHANG SEPTEMBER 17, 2014 4:17 PMSeptember 17, 2014 4:17 pm
Researchers say gut bacteria changed in subjects that consumed artificial sweeteners, leading to glucose intolerance.Artificial sweeteners may
disrupt the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar, causing metabolic changes that can be a precursor to diabetes, researchers are reporting.The
scientists performed a multitude of experiments, mostly on mice, to back up their assertion that the sweeteners alter the microbiome, the
population of bacteria that is in the digestive system.The different mix of microbes, the researchers contend, changes the metabolism of glucose,
causing levels to rise higher after eating and to decline more slowly than they otherwise would.In the initial set of experiments, the scientists added
saccharin (the sweetener in the pink packets of Sweet’N Low), sucralose (the yellow packets of Splenda) or aspartame (the blue packets of Equal) to
the drinking water of 10-week-old mice. Other mice drank plain water or water supplemented with glucose or with ordinary table sugar. After a
week, there was little change in the mice that drank water or sugar water, but the group getting artificial sweeteners developed marked intolerance
to glucose.When the researchers treated the mice with antibiotics, killing much of the bacteria in the digestive system, the glucose intolerance went
away.To further test their hypothesis that the change in glucose metabolism was caused by a change in bacteria, they performed another series of
experiments, this time focusing just on saccharin. They took intestinal bacteria from mice that had drunk saccharin-laced water and injected them
in mice that had never been exposed to any saccharin. Those mice developed the same glucose intolerance. And DNA sequencing showed that
saccharin had markedly changed the variety of bacteria in the guts of the mice that consumed it.Next, the researchers turned to a study they were
conducting to track the effects of nutrition and gut bacteria on people’s long-term health. For 381 nondiabetic participants in the study, the
researchers found a correlation between the reported use of any kind of artificial sweeteners and signs of glucose intolerance. In addition, the gut
bacteria of those who used artificial sweeteners were different from those who did not.Finally, they recruited seven volunteers who normally did
not use artificial sweeteners and over six days gave them the maximum amount of saccharin recommended by the United States Food and Drug
Administration. In four of the seven, blood-sugar levels were disrupted in the same way as in mice.Further, when they injected the human
participants’ bacteria into the intestines of mice, the animals again developed glucose intolerance, suggesting that effect was the same in both mice
and humans.Intriguingly — “superstriking and interesting to us,” Dr. Segal said — the intestinal bacteria of the people who did experience effects
were different from those who did not. This suggests that any effects of artificial sweeteners are not universal. It also suggests probiotics —
medicines consisting of live bacteria — could be used to shift gut bacteria to a population that reversed the glucose intolerance.
Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health who did not take part in the study, called it
interesting but far from conclusive and added that given the number of participants, “I think the validity of the human study is questionable.”
MY COMMENTARY: - NOT CONCLUSIVE, and even if true, if ‘not permitted’ to use them, those that do use them EG:sodas would use sweet
ones-THEREFORE MUCH WORSE;
Moreover, drugs we use to treat diabetes now counteract mechanisms that bacteria raise sugar- EG: pioglitazone, incretins- SO, TO HAVE
EASIEST PROGRAM TO FOLLOW, Can have ‘sugar-free, no sugar added stuff, as long as <10 calories/ serving