If you tend to choose foods and beverages made with artificial sweeteners rather than sugar, you may want to reconsider.
While we know that added sugar is not good for our bodies, now we also know that six FDA-approved artificial sweeteners — aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame, and acesulfame potassium-k – could cause long-term health problems as well.
Three years ago, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Prof. Ariel Kushmaro revealed that these six sweeteners are toxic to digestive gut microbes.
Now, he and colleagues from BGU and from Cyprus report in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences that three of these substances– aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin – interfere with bacterial communication.
And this, they theorize, could lead to digestive diseases and discomfort.
“The fact that bacteria use quorum sensing to communicate with each other revolutionizes our understanding and enables us to provide clearer answers,” said lead researcher Karina Golberg from BGU’s department of biotechnology engineering.
“Artificial sweeteners disrupt that communication, which indicates that artificial sweeteners may be problematic in the long run,” said Golberg.