
Artificial Sweeteners May Change Our Gut Bacteria in Dangerous Ways - danielam
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/
======
beat
I'm currently trying to kick a Diet Coke habit (my equivalent of smoking),
which I think is contributing to several health problems, not the least of
which is carrying about 40 pounds more than I should around.

Part of it, which isn't covered by these studies, is how a reliance on diet
soda affects your diet overall. It serves as a lubricant, for lack of a better
word, for dense starchy carbs and salt. I can wolf down french fries with diet
soda, but it's a lot harder with just water, which doesn't cut the salt or
grease.

My real warning to cut back came from my mouth. I have an autoimmune problem
that causes sores similar to cold sores. My salty, sour, spicy diet aggravates
it, and the diet soda enables that diet (and is itself acidic). I'm tired of
pain, so I'm cutting back.

Lost five pounds in an instant.

~~~
devy
Sorry to ask this personal question, do you know if there is a name for the
autoimmune problem that causes scores?

~~~
hncomment
Some such sores, if occasional, may just be canker sores:

[http://www.healthline.com/health/canker-
sores](http://www.healthline.com/health/canker-sores)

I've noted a correlation with: stress or lack of sleep; candy binges; eating
scratchy foods like say popcorn.

~~~
Hytosys
I've been suffering from these blasted things for 18 years, and have similarly
noted the same sorts of correlations. My best efforts: cutting out gum;
cutting out sharp foods; cutting out acidic foods; taking vitamins B-12 and C,
L-lysine, and zinc; switching toothpastes and brushing techniques. I regret
not recording my history of occurrences, but I perceive things are improving.
At the very least, it's safe to say the cause of canker sores is multi-
factorial.

Sorry, I'm rambling. No one in my life can relate, so I'll take any chance to
talk about it.

~~~
hncomment
You reminded me: I switched years ago to SLS-free toothpaste (Biotene),
because that's supposed to help. And for many reasons, I now eat way less
sugar and sugary drinks. Maybe because of those changes, or just age, I get
canker sores much less frequently. When I was younger, it was maybe 2-3 times
a year, and sometimes 2 at once. Now I go a year or two between single,
smaller ulcers. Good luck!

------
mapt
It's entirely possible that this is just sloppy science journalism, but the
distinction the SA article mentions sounds a bit ridiculous.

"In the Israeli experiment, 10-week-old mice were fed a daily dose of
aspartame, sucralose or saccharin. Another cluster of mice were given water
laced with one of two natural sugars, glucose or sucrose.

After 11 weeks, the mice receiving sugar were doing fine, whereas the mice fed
artificial sweeteners had abnormally high blood sugar (glucose) levels, an
indication that their tissues were having difficulty absorbing glucose from
the blood. "

So you feed group B sugar, and group A things that are not sugar, and then you
put both groups through a glucose challenge, administering a calibrated amount
of sugar, and group A's blood sugar spikes higher than group B's, which is not
acclimated to metabolizing sugar. This is not surprising.

I suppose I'd need to read the journal article later when I have time, to be
sure. There are a lot of things that look like interesting correlations in
tests like this that actually aren't, when you control for _all_ of the
variables, and consider the short-term and long-term adaptations the body
makes.

~~~
fluidcruft
Researchers actually went much further than you assume and used microbe
transplants to show that the gut microbiome from the sugar-fed mice rescued
the artificial-sweetener-fed mice. And that similar transplants in the other
direction resulted in the bad outcomes in the sugar-fed mice.

I don't think your speculation and armchair research is any more more helpful
than the bad science journalism you complain about. If you don't know what
you're talking about, maybe you could try keeping it to yourself.

~~~
jhall1468
> I don't think your speculation and armchair research is any more more
> helpful than the bad science journalism you complain about.

Anonymous people on the Internet can't be held to the same standards as a
research paper. On the contrary, since this is largely a public opinion forum
I believe that commenting without evidence is encouraged and it's up to the
reader to make a determination about said opinion.

What a silly idea that we aren't allowed to publicize opinion.

~~~
Karunamon
There is Kind of a big difference between saying that a comment is not helpful
and that you are not allowed to make a comment, you know.

Random unscientific speculation on scientific matters is a problem and should
not be encouraged.

------
encoderer
I can't remember the source, but somebody was speaking recently on the US
healthcare system.

He made the point that the proof our healthcare in this country is broken is
that when you go to the doctor to complain about illness nobody has ever been
asked "How have you been eating?". Unless you have specific medical
restrictions, there is little time spent on how your diet affects your health.
My dream of quantified-self is a disrupted healthcare system focused on
gestalt care.

~~~
rodly
I think part of the reason for this is that generally speaking, people who eat
poorly know they're eating poorly and would rather have their cake and eat it
too. They know soda is bad for them and that apples are good for them. That
sitting all day long doesn't expend a lot of energy and running the back hills
for a half hour does.

So when someone asks an ill person who eats poorly "How have you been eating?"
they know they're about to receive a long story about how they've tried and
failed, or that lately they've been "cheating" or that they've been super busy
at work and kids and life is hard and they have no time for such things.
What's the doctor supposed to say after this? Nothing. Because people are only
going to change themselves when they truly want to and not when someone tells
them they should.

So instead they look for more efficient routes at attempting care. Drugs are
pretty good at this for a while. Got high blood pressure? Here's some beta
blockers. You got an aching back? Here's some pain medication for that. They
make more money this way, their patients can reliably take the 3 seconds to
swallow a pill everyday, and everyone seems to be pretty happy until they have
a heart attack or need a wheelchair. It's a good thing that those things come
with old age so their poor health condition can be blamed on yet again
something other than their continued poor diet and lack of exercise.

It's funny how simple being healthy is. Sleep, diet and exercise.

~~~
rando3826
Meh, your both wrong. When appropriate, doctors do ask about diet, they do
recommend changes to diet, it does make a difference, and being healthy is not
necessarily simple.

~~~
veb
You basically reinforced his point. People know what they're doing wrong, and
_when_ they want to change that part of their lifestyle, then they will and
any doctor will be more than happy to help them. There's such a thing as a
dietitian after all.

------
Lost_BiomedE
Very early in the research, if I am to just go off the article. First, the
article really only addresses saccharin. Second, the healthy volunteer study
appears to use max daily acceptable intake, which sounds reasonable at first.
The amount, however, is the equivalent of 250 packets of sweet and low:

[http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/FoodAdd...](http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/FoodAdditivesIngredients/ucm397725.htm#SummaryTable)

------
darcyparker
Aspartame (Nutrasweet) is pretty controversial in how it got approved by the
FDA.

See: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-
rumsfeld-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-and-
the-s_b_805581.html)

When I was 8 years old, I started having grand mal seizures and my parents
noted a strong correlation between drinking a Diet Coke and having a seizure.
When they eliminated it from my diet, my seizures declined. Fortunately I
stopped having seizures around 12 years of age. But given my experience, I
continue to avoid all artificial sweeteners.

I know sources like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Safety_and_approval_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Safety_and_approval_controversies)
claim that it is safe... and I agree that for most people it is probably okay
in moderation. But based on my experience and the history of how Aspartame
(Nutrasweet) got approved, I have serious doubts about its safety.

~~~
canvia
That article has a lot of fear mongering about artificial sweeteners and then
at the bottom an ad for "certifiedorganicevaporatedcanejuice.com". Maybe it's
not the most objective source of information?

~~~
darcyparker
Rumsfeld was the CEO at Searle - the makers of Aspartame... And he used his
political influence to replace the FDA commissioner so Aspartame could be
legalized. That's a conflict of interest.

~~~
sosborn
While scummy, that doesn't necessarily mean that Aspartame is dangerous.

------
Illotus
Science reporting is really hard. This story comes off as if there was enough
research to start to move away from the researched sweeteners. Especially the
part in the end is laughable: "Segal, for one, is taking no chances: he says
that he has switched from using artificial to natural sweetener in his morning
coffee."

However the study done on humans had small sample size, the only studied
sweetener was saccharin and the subjects were given the full ADI. These are
very preliminary studies and are useful mostly for deciding future study
targets. So not really studies to base your diet decisions on.

------
ptx
"He and his team analyzed a database of 381 men and women and found that those
who used artificial sweeteners (...) were also more likely to have impaired
glucose tolerance."

So those who are intolerant to glucose tend to avoid glucose? That hardly
seems surprising.

------
jrochkind1
> had 50 percent fewer Bacteroidetes bacteria and 50 percent more Firmicutes
> bacteria than normal mice did. When they transferred a sample of the
> Firmicutes bacterial population from the obese mice into normal-weight ones,
> the normal mice became fatter.

Woah. I assume someone is now doing research on introducing Bacteroidetes into
the guts of obese people?

~~~
mrfusion
I know you can buy probiotics. Can you buy just Bacteroidetes ?

~~~
washadjeffmad
General Biotics
[[http://www.generalbiotics.com](http://www.generalbiotics.com)] has some more
information available on that (and a product based on the research).

------
mesozoic
Meh. Let me know when useful long term test are actually done on humans and
not mice models.

~~~
dandelion_lover
It is already happening with all those people drinking soda. And everyone
knows it is not healthy.

------
mrfusion
Does anyone have any thoughts how Xylitol or Erythritol might fare under a
study like this? They're currently my go to sweeteners. I'm not sure why
they're not more popular.

~~~
amputect
Sugar alcohols can have some unpleasant side effects, which make them
unpopular for general use. They can cause bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea
if you consume too much of them. The pop-culture example of this is the review
section on [http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-Free-Gummy-
Bears/dp/B008J...](http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-Free-Gummy-
Bears/dp/B008JELLCA), or in a less ridiculous form at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol#Safety and
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol#Side_effects](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol#Side_effects).

That's not at all to say they're bad or poison; I love sugar-free gum a lot,
but the amount of sugar alcohol in each piece is very low. The problem is just
that the side effects mean that if they're widely used, eventually someone is
going to crap themselves and blame your product, and almost nobody wants that.

~~~
mrfusion
I put two tbsp of xylitol into my smoothies and I've never had a problem. It's
also supposed to be good for your teeth.

I do wonder how something can be so dangerous for dogs and safe for humans.
Aren't our cells almost identical?

~~~
amputect
Yeah, xylitol inhibits bacterial growth in the mouth. I like it in gum, it
seems to help me. It seems like different people have different tolerances for
xylitol to some extent; I know that my wife, who is much smaller than me, has
a higher absolute tolerance than I do (i.e. if we eat the same amount without
accounting for body weight, I will experience discomfort and she will not).

I'm not a vet but I'm waiting on some batch tests at work so I did some
reading. According to [http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/new-findings-
effects-xy...](http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/new-findings-effects-
xylitol-ingestion-dogs), dogs absorb Xylitol much more quickly than rats or
humans do. Xylitol also provokes dogs to release insulin, but not people. The
reasons behind that are not completely clear to me, but since they quickly and
completely absorb Xylitol, they end up producing a ton of insulin very quickly
which tanks their blood glucose levels. That's dangerous without any
complicating factors.

Additionally, dogs metabolize xylitol differently, and it's thought that a
side effect of the metabolization is to deplete adenosine triphosphate in the
liver, which can cause liver necrosis (obviously very bad news).

Humans don't absorb xylitol well (it's only partially digestible and some of
it acts as dietary fiber, sort of), and we don't metabolize what we do absorb
very efficiently. The difference is likely in both the dose relative to body
weight, and the intensity (since dogs metabolize it much faster and more
completely).

That's all secondhand info though, I don't have a JSTOR or equivalent account
so I couldn't read any interesting primary papers. If we coincidentally have a
vet wandering through I'd love to learn more about this.

~~~
lnufnu
You can adapt to xylitol in your diet. It is best to introduce it slowly into
your diet. Chewing gum is a great way to use it daily and increase your intake
over time. Dental recommendations are 6-10 grams per day, but most people
would experience discomfort starting off at that amount.

------
Shivetya
Purely anecdotal: what I remember from the time the Doc was trying to
determine what was making me sick while eating was the list of items totally
off my diet. Besides the obvious, no dairy, no carbonated, no caffeine, and
limit on other items like fats and salts, was no artificial sweeteners.

I didn't question it at the time as I was desperately in need of getting the
situation fixed. Turned out the Ciphro I had taken; as last resort type
medicine; had killed all the good bacteria and such in my intestinal tract
letting something else move in. Another series of drugs later and that was
cleared up but he still left me with a list of items to curtail for the next
six months until all tests came clean and one was artificial sweeteners.

------
cleaver
Stevia was not included, so for now I'll assume it is safe. It does have some
positive effects such as increasing insulin sensitivity.

I only had diet soft drinks very occasionally, but I think I'll eliminate
entirely and stick to water or juice.

~~~
LordKano
I'm not sure that stevia is an "artificial" sweetener.

~~~
mapt
Your body doesn't care whether something was made by humans or whether it was
made by nature. It only cares about the particularities of the molecules
involved.

~~~
jmcmichael
Yeah, it appears that stevia would likely have similar effects, as it has been
suggested that tasting sweetness causes an spike in insulin without a
corresponding bump in blood glucose levels, leading to an excess of
insulin[1].

What causes the difference in effect between glucose and artificial sweeteners
appears to be the taste of sweetness without the carbohydrates that would go
along with natural sources of sweet taste.

[1] Sucralose Affects Glycemic and Hormonal Responses to an Oral Glucose Load
-[http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/04/30/dc...](http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/04/30/dc12-2221)

------
tedunangst
Also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8331474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8331474)

------
number_six
So sugar is good again?

~~~
ethanbond
> Methadone is really harmful.

> So heroin is back in?

Evidently, both are bad and it doesn't seem to be immediately clear whether
real sugar or artificial is _more_ harmful. But we do know for a fact that
excess carbohydrate intake causes _numerous_ serious health problems (heart
problems, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc).

~~~
__david__
Which is depressing because carbohydrates are _so_ tasty. It's all I can do to
resist them.

~~~
Zelphyr
Same here though I've heard that with carbs and sugar, after a week or two
without you find you don't crave them anymore. "I've heard" because I've not
yet been able to attempt that particular experiment. :)

~~~
ethanbond
I've been doing low-carb (to varying degrees) for about 4 years now and love
it.

I used to be all about potatoes, bread, pasta, milk, etc. Never big on sweets,
but the complex carbs... oh yes. Once I almost hit 200lb at 17-ish I decided
to cut carbs (/r/keto) and it worked wonders. I was down to about 150 (a
healthy weight for my size) in about a year, but the weight loss is
asymptotic. I lost like 10 pounds in my first two weeks, but it took me
another 8-9 months to lose the other 40.

The first week or two are somewhat hellish for some people because you're
essentially going through a withdrawal. It's nearly identical in mechanism and
symptoms of a drug withdrawal. If anything, that should underline how
detrimental regular excess carb intake can be. What's even worse than the
normal "withdrawals," though, is when you cheat.

When I first went to college I ate an absurd amount of carbs for a rush event
(aka fun/eating challenge) and literally fell asleep _at the table_. Then I
felt like shit for the next 3 days. That was my last time cheating :)

You're absolutely right, though, after the first 1-3 weeks, your cravings
stop, headaches stop, brain fog clears, you sleep amazingly, feel energized,
and _don 't even notice_ the dessert menu. It's fascinating and I highly
recommend it. You may hate it, you may love it. It has benefitted me in a lot
of ways, and it continues to even as I somewhat elevate my carb intake in
order to work out effectively.

------
pbreit
Fake sugar tastes bad and is unnecessary. Let's get rid of it already. Eat
whole foods!

~~~
washadjeffmad
It's funny how extracting and concentrating sucrose from certain hemi- and
cellulose fibers (like their sponsor does) isn't very different from
extracting and concentrating xylitol from other hemi- and cellulose fibers,
but to some, it's worlds apart.

------
Allower
No Fucking Shit

------
watmough
Shocker.

Glad I stick with drinking tea, milk and water.

Soda is bad news.

------
6t6t6
I really don't understand the need for "diet" soft drinks.

I mean, soft drinks are ok, to drink sometimes. But if someone is drinking
enough soft drink to worry about the amount of sugar intake, then he is
drinking too much sodas. Soft drinks are like "light" cigarettes.

What is the problem about drinking water?

~~~
imron
I once made fun of a friend for drinking a "diet" soft drink. Turns out he was
diabetic and couldn't drink regular ones. I stopped making fun of people
drinking diet soft drinks after that.

I agree though that water is the best :-)

~~~
6t6t6
I was not making fun about people drinking soft drinks. My point is that sweet
drinks are unhealthy, no matter witch kind of sweetener they use. For me, the
fact that there's people that ONLY drink soft-drinks (including fruit juices)
is quite shocking. But anyway, seeing the amount of downvotes I got, I guess I
touched some kind if american social tabu.

------
Sirey4
I think one of the most important things to keep in mind when reading articles
like this is the old mantra that "correlation does not equal causation". I'm
always a bit skeptical when studies show partially successful statistics.

I've done a lot of research on the subject at hand, and I still believe that
consuming real sugar is orders of magnitudes worse than using sweeteners.

~~~
minikites
> "correlation does not equal causation"

I hate this phrase so much because it's so often used to imply that "because
there is correlation it means there can't be causation"

> Tufte suggests that the shortest true statement that can be made about
> causality and correlation is one of the following:

> "Empirically observed covariation is a necessary but not sufficient
> condition for causality."

> "Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint."

~~~
Dylan16807
So often used to imply _what_? I've seen a lot of people ignoring correlation
when they really shouldn't, I have never in my life seen them using the
implication backwards. How often do you see that?

~~~
minikites
I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, but I see exactly what I
mentioned in the parent comment, which is why I wrote my comment.

~~~
Dylan16807
I don't see it like that. Large claims require large proof, that's all I see
in the comment. Shocking numbers need more investigation, and need a big grain
of salt, but that is still taking the result as weak support of causality, not
a counter to it.

I think you're reading "skepticism" as "the opposite is likely" and I'm
reading it as "assign low weight".

