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By Kate Kelland
Reuters

Scientists staring at the outcomes of low calorie sweeteners in mice and humans say they may have learned that eating them might increase the risk of developing glucose intolerance, a risk factor for diabetes.

In work that raises questions over whether artificial sweeteners – widely seen as “healthier” than sugars – should be reassessed, the researchers said the substances altered the total amount of microbes inside the gut associated with susceptibility to metabolic diseases like diabetes.

“In your studies we found out that artificial sweeteners may drive, or contribute to… an exaggerated elevation in blood sugar levels – the very same condition that any of us often endeavor to prevent by consuming them,” said Eran Elinav with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who co-led the procedure.

Calorie-free low calorie sweeteners are traditionally used in foods and drinks for example diet fizzy drinks or sodas and sugar-free yoghurts and desserts and they are suitable weight-loss for treatment or protection against diabetes.

Nutrition and metabolism pros who weren\’t involved with Elinav’s studies said the end result were intriguing, but were mainly focused entirely on mice, were very preliminary and should not trigger modifications in recommendations on so-called non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS).

“This research raises caution that NAS may not represent the \’innocent magic bullet\’ these people were intended to be to help you with the obesity and diabetes epidemics, nonetheless it does not yet provide sufficient evidence to switch public health and clinical practice,” said Nita Forouhi, program leader for the Scientific research Council’s epidemiology unit at Cambridge University.

Rates of obesity and diabetes are reaching really dangerous levels worldwide, and advice to cut down on sugar intake as an element of an even more weight loss diet is sometimes coupled with recommendations to replace sugary drinks with “diet” or “light” versions who use artificial sweeteners instead.

Elinav’s team conducted several experiments in the mice and humans, repeating them many times to measure their results. They used three common low calorie sweeteners – saccharin, sucralose or aspartame.

They saw that mice whose waters was supplemented with glucose as well as a sweetener developed marked glucose intolerance compared with mice h2o alone, or water with just sugar within it. The unreal sweeteners exert this effect by altering the balance of gut microbes, the course notes said.

FINDINGS INCONCLUSIVE FOR HUMANS

Moving upon human studies, they analyzed around 400 people observed that this gut bacteria in people who consumed artificial sweeteners was significantly different from folks that couldn\’t. Furthermore they found NAS eaters had “markers” for diabetes, including raised blood sugar and glucose intolerance.

The scientists then put seven volunteers who would not normally consume artificial sweeteners on controlled 7-day diet of high NAS intake, and located that if only four days their blood sugar were up as well as composition of the gut bacteria had also changed, mirroring the final results in mice.

“These results indicate that non-caloric artificial sweeteners may exacerbate, and not prevent, metabolic disorders for instance glucose intolerance and diabetes,” the team wrote into their study inside the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow who did not have direct involvement with Elinav’s research, said the finding inside the mice experiments was interesting “but we will have to remember two important things”:

“Animal data for a lot of experiments never show a similar effect in humans, which often can sometimes be quite contrary,” and “current epidemiological data in humans usually do not support a meaningful link between diet drinks and risk for diabetes, whereas sugar rich beverages do seems to be connected to higher diabetes risk.”

“So, these findings wouldn\’t make me choose sugary drinks over diet drinks,” he stated.