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Research links sugar subtitutes to obesity

"It’s counter-intuitive -- no one expected it because it never occurred to them to look," said Martin Blaser.

By Brooks Hays
A restaurant sugar caddy filled with artificial sweeteners. (CC/Steve Snodgrass)
A restaurant sugar caddy filled with artificial sweeteners. (CC/Steve Snodgrass)

REHOVOT, Israel, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Sugar substitutes like saccharine were once heralded for their ability to help consumers avoid extra calories while still satisfying their sweet tooth, but new research suggests these artificial sweeteners may be exacerbating problems of obesity, not helping to solve them.

During a recent experiment, researchers at Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, found a that when mice subjects were given various sweeteners, like saccharin, sucralose or aspartame, they developed glucose intolerance after 11 weeks.

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Glucose intolerance is a precursor of metabolic disorders, whereby food is not efficiently used for energy and thus becomes fat. Further investigation proved saccharin was affecting the mice through their gut microbiome, promoting an unhealthy and unbalanced community of bacteria.

Previous studies have shown a correlation between the use of sweeteners and instances of metabolic disorders, but this was the first to show a more specific cause and effect -- the first to show sugar substitutes might be manipulating the microbes inside a person's gut.

"It's counter-intuitive -- no one expected it because it never occurred to them to look," Martin Blaser, a microbiologist at New York University, told Nature.

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The researchers attempted to replicate their findings in a small human sample, having lean and healthy volunteers take on a diet high in artificial sweeteners for several weeks. Four of the seven developed an unbalanced gut microbiome and began to show signs of glucose intolerance, while the other three proved immune to the ill-effects of saccharin.

"This underlines the importance of personalized nutrition -- not everyone is the same," lead researcher Eran Elinav said of his team's followup work.

Elinav and his colleagues say the study isn't big enough to draw firm conclusions about whether or not one should shy away from sweeteners, but it is evidence that researchers need to take a more in-depth look at the ways our foods impact the microbial makeup of our guts. Doing so, Blaser said, might "inspire us in developing new therapeutic approaches to metabolic disease."

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