An artificial sweetener used in many types of food, including candy, cakes, juice, yoghurt and chewing gum has been shown to cause significant gut damage in a lab-based study.
The new study published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, indicates that even small doses of neotame, a derivative of aspartame can cause damage to the gut, potentially leading to inflammation, resistance to insulin and even serious blood infections, according to the research team.
“There is now growing awareness of the health impacts of sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose and aspartame, with our own previous work demonstrating the problems they can cause to the wall of the intestine and the damage to the ‘good bacteria’ which form in our gut,” said Dr. Havovi Chichger, senior author of the work from Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K in a press release.
Neotame is a newer sweetener and was approved by the FDA for use in most foodstuffs in 2002. But the study showed that the sweetener can damage the digestive tract in numerous different ways; directly by causing the death of the cells which line the gut and allow for absorption of nutrients and also directly, by damaging “good” bacteria found in the gut microbiome which are essential for digestion.
The study tested neotame on some species of bacteria typically found in the microbiome and found that the sweetener influenced the normally-helpful bacteria to behave abnormally. The researchers also combined the bacteria with gut cells in a dish and tested the effect of neotame, finding that the bacteria became toxic to the cells by sticking to them and sometimes even entering them, causing cell death.
“This can lead to a range of potential health issues including diarrhoea, intestinal inflammation, and even infections such as septicaemia if the bacteria were to enter the blood stream,” added Dr Chichger.
Aspartame, the older sibling of neotame in particular has been controversial, with some studies suggesting that it might be carcinogenic, but often in higher doses than most humans reasonably consume. For example the American Cancer Society website states that: “The FDA estimates that a person weighing 60 kg (132 lb) would have to consume about 75 packets of aspartame in a day to reach the upper end of the acceptable daily intake of 50 mg/kg/day.”
The World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” based on some, limited evidence linking it to the development of liver cancers in people. But regulatory organizations generally summarize that there is no conclusive evidence that aspartame causes cancer at doses which humans typically consume.
However, the new study was not about cancer and indicates that sweeteners may have other negative impacts on health.
“It is important to study sweeteners that have been introduced more recently and our new research demonstrates that neotame causes similar problems, including gut bacteria becoming diseased,” said Dr Chichger, who has done several previous studies looking at the impact of sweeteners on gut health. The study also tested neotame at concentrations that were at, or below the recommended daily allowance for humans.
“Our findings demonstrate the need to better understand common food additives more widely and the molecular mechanisms underlying potential negative health impacts,” said Dr Chichger.
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