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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : October 7, 2014 5:26 PM IST
Watch your intake of artificial sweeteners, if you want to prevent diabetes and obesity. Artificial sweeteners may not contain sugar but they can directly affect your body's ability to metabolise glucose, says a new study carried out by scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
The study found that exposure to artificial sweeteners triggers gut bacteria to carry out harmful metabolic changes that results in diabetes and obesity. For the study, researchers gave mice water laced with the three most commonly used artificial sweeteners, in quantities equivalent to those permitted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It was found that these mice developed glucose intolerance, the path to development of adult-onset diabetes. The experiment was repeated with different types of mice and different doses of the artificial sweeteners. The results were replicated, indicating that these substances somehow induce glucose intolerance. To identify what exactly causes this change, the researchers investigated the role of gut microbiota in the development of diabetes.
They thought the bacteria might do this by reacting to new substances like artificial sweeteners, which the body itself may not recognise as 'food.' Researchers treated mice with antibiotics to eradicate many of their gut bacteria; this resulted in a full reversal of the artificial sweeteners' effects on glucose metabolism. Next, they transferred the microbiota from mice that consumed artificial sweeteners to 'germ-free,' or sterile, mice - resulting in a complete transmission of the glucose intolerance into the recipient mice.
This, in itself, was conclusive proof that changes to the gut bacteria are directly responsible for the harmful effects to their host's metabolism. A detailed characterisation of the microbiota in these mice revealed profound changes to their bacterial populations, including new microbial functions that are known to infer a propensity to obesity, diabetes, and complications of these problems in both mice and humans.
Researchers also conducted a controlled experiment in humans, asking a group of volunteers who did not generally eat or drink artificially sweetened foods to consume them for a week, and then undergo tests of their glucose levels and gut microbiota compositions. The findings showed that many - but not all - of the volunteers had begun to develop glucose intolerance after just one week of artificial sweetener consumption.
With inputs from PTI
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