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Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

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61–70 of 137 posts

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#61

The article doesn't say which sweeteners did they study and this is a very bad style. Fortunately it links to an article on EurekAlert which in its turn links to the actual scientific paper (doi.org/10.3390/molecules23102454). It says aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame and acesulfame potassium-k (ace-k) (BTW at least saccharine and ace-k are already known to be carcinogenic AFAIK) were tested agains…

Paranoid mistrust, cancer fears, and fart-driven explosive diarrhea had already winnowed my list of non-sucrose sweeteners down to just erythritol, pure stevia powder, and very small amounts of xylitol.

I'll have to look into lactulose and palatinose.... And it looks like lactulose is out for the diarrhea reason, and isomaltulose--Palatinose is a trademarked name for it--looks practically identical to slow-motion sucrose, including caloric content. It has a lower glycemic index, but is half as sweet as sucrose, so you may end up consuming more calories for the same amount of sweetness.

Erythritol is not good for gut bacteria. It is 90% absorbed before reaching the colon, and excreted mostly intact in urine and feces, and the early absorption is why it doesn't have the diarrheal effect common to most sugar alcohols. Sweeteners that are neither absorbed nor digested draw water out of the digestive tract as they pass. Those that can be fermented by colon bacteria also tend to produce gases, that help push the water out. Xylitol is not fermentable, so the diarrhea you might get won't be quite so bad.

I think I'll stick with a mix of erthyritol and stevia, with proportions titrated such that equal-volume measures of erythritol/stevia and sucrose crystals have roughly equivalent sweetness. The flavor profile isn't quite right, but it's good enough for me until something better comes along.

(edit) I'll also add that it seems to work best in foods where other flavors can dominate. While you can sort of taste it as not being real sugar in lemonade, in sugar-free fudge, all you can taste is the sweetness. But it also forms crystals during cooling, and I haven't quite worked that out yet. Gritty/crunchy fudge is not exactly ideal.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is sick, they'll become slow. All they'll want to do is lie down some place quiet. Watch kids, healthy kids. After a meal, all they want to do is run, talk, jump - move. Sitting still is the last thing they want to do. My point is perhaps, sedentary behavior is caused by something, a symptom outside the control of those afflicted by it. Here are some culprits we could explore: Schooling: Being trained, for…

You are looking for reasons outside of "me". It's "they" (aka school), caused by "that" (food/chemical) and so on. Not that it might not contribute, actually I would be surprised if it didn't somehow, but - its "us". You, me, everybody. We are lazy, we are overworked, we just sit on our asses whole day, lack sleep, eat junk food, drink crappy drinks, we know damn well we should exercise often but still we don't becau…

Depression is a hell of a drug. Add in constant doom and gloom from every corner of society (why live to be 120 if it's all downhill from here?), a bit of apathy, and a dash of hedonism (with unlimited distractions-you can have endless entertainment without leaving the house) and you've got a potent cocktail.

I'm not sure most humans are built to overcome these hurdles, and they're just becoming larger as time goes on.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#63
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an 8 oz. cup of coffee with 16 packets of Splenda. I have literally seen people do such things at Dunkin Donuts. "Yeah can I get a medium coffee with extra cream and 20 sugars." You WUT M8?

I feel like we're ignoring scale here. 16 packets of Splenda in a mouse's stomach.

You might be right, I was inferring that the 16 packets was for human levels, but after reading it over again I am not sure that is the case.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is sick, they'll become slow. All they'll want to do is lie down some place quiet. Watch kids, healthy kids. After a meal, all they want to do is run, talk, jump - move. Sitting still is the last thing they want to do. My point is perhaps, sedentary behavior is caused by something, a symptom outside the control of those afflicted by it. Here are some culprits we could explore: Schooling: Being trained, for…

You are looking for reasons outside of "me". It's "they" (aka school), caused by "that" (food/chemical) and so on. Not that it might not contribute, actually I would be surprised if it didn't somehow, but - its "us". You, me, everybody. We are lazy, we are overworked, we just sit on our asses whole day, lack sleep, eat junk food, drink crappy drinks, we know damn well we should exercise often but still we don't becau…

By this rhetoric, a lack of obesity and obesity-related illness in a population indicates that the population has consciously decided to be healthier, eat healthier, exercise more, and work less. In short, they are morally superior entities with stronger wills.

Since obesity and obesity-related illnesses spiked in America in the 1970s, and the rhetoric here implies that such illnesses are primarily about conscious choice and will, the conclusion is that humans in america before 1970 were stronger people- in will, mind, body. They were a more disciplined, moral people, who had the will to resist all unhealthy and processed foods, sleep properly, and work reasonable hours doing active labor.

I find that quite confusing, because I don't recall that ever being the case.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#65

The article doesn't say which sweeteners did they study and this is a very bad style. Fortunately it links to an article on EurekAlert which in its turn links to the actual scientific paper (doi.org/10.3390/molecules23102454). It says aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame and acesulfame potassium-k (ace-k) (BTW at least saccharine and ace-k are already known to be carcinogenic AFAIK) were tested agains…

According to research from 1985 Xylitol has to been shown to shift the gut microbiome population from gram negative to gram positive bacteria. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4076932

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#66

The article doesn't say which sweeteners did they study and this is a very bad style. Fortunately it links to an article on EurekAlert which in its turn links to the actual scientific paper (doi.org/10.3390/molecules23102454). It says aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame and acesulfame potassium-k (ace-k) (BTW at least saccharine and ace-k are already known to be carcinogenic AFAIK) were tested agains…

Paranoid mistrust, cancer fears, and fart-driven explosive diarrhea had already winnowed my list of non-sucrose sweeteners down to just erythritol, pure stevia powder, and very small amounts of xylitol. I'll have to look into lactulose and palatinose.... And it looks like lactulose is out for the diarrhea reason, and isomaltulose--Palatinose is a trademarked name for it--looks practically identical to slow-motion suc…

I've found that stevia sweeteners with inulin (not insulin) seen to be beneficial for my gut bacteria. Actually seems to help with "loose days".

Sweetleaf is generally what I use.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#67

The underlying research article ( https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/23/10/2454 ) is set up as a "no-fail" experiment since it infers toxicity with the slightest change (inhibition or induction) in a very sensitive reporter (luciferase). They are NOT measuring change in growth rate of the bacterial cells, the traditional measure of toxicity (aka IC, or inhibitory concentration). The study has positive and negative contro…

I've always found any of these studies that treat artificial sweeteners as a single group very suspect.

1) The only thing the different types of Artificial Sweeteners have in common is a high sweetness value per volume (2k-4k time more sweet than sugar is common). Other than that they are different chemicals so it seems strange to treat them a single group. Sure a few of them might have issues but it seems silly to say they all have the same single issue. Really a red flag for who funded the study.

2) Due to the very high sweetness levels compared to sugar, even if the artificial sweetener is many times worse than sugar per volume, it is still safer due to only 1/2k being actually being used.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#68
post #39

You can thank former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld for allowing Aspartame to remain FDA approved despite scientific research concerns: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/nzpbkx/the-story-of-how...

Meh, this study is misleading. They didn't test if any other foods had the same effect. So sure, sweeteners might have a detrimental effect by this biomarker. But they didn't check if anything we'd consider healthy, like broccoli or onions, have similar effects.

This is like saying "smoking increases your change of a heart attack 10X after one puff!" without noting "...but having sex increases it 7X and drinking a can of coke increases it 5X".

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#69
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, peanut butter is near the bottom of the scale for being insulinogenic (the food insulin index). That means it's less likely to be put away as fat according to The Personalized Diet by Drs Segal and Elinav [1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1478918802

Does this factor in the added sugar in most peanut butters? I can't find any without it around here.

Peanut butter without sugar is labeled as "natural peanut butter" in the US.

Re: Study: Artificial sweeteners toxic to digestive gut bacteria

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Processed foods + sedentary lifestyles = perfect storm. Pretty obvious "something" happened in the 70s and we've been on this ride ever since: https://nchspressroom.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/obesity.gi...

Realizing one 2 tablespoon serving of peanut butter was half a full meal was a wakeup call. It turns out 1/4 or less of a "serving" of most processed things works the same taste-wise and doesn't lead to insatiable hunger later.

A full meal is 380 calories?
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