If you’re suffering from type 2 diabetes, you have probably been advised to avoid foods and drinks that are high in sugar.
And if you want soda, you should go for the sugar-free variety, right?
Wrong, says a new study published in the journal Cell.
Not only will these sugar-free sodas (and other zero calorie candies) spike your blood sugar; they will also alter your body in a way that is nothing short of terrifying!
For this study, American and Israeli scientists recruited 120 healthy Israeli adults and split them into six groups.
The first four groups were intervention groups that were asked to take packets of one of the following sweeteners:
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1) Saccharin
2) Sucralose
3) Aspartame
4) Stevia
Participants had to take two 1-gram sachets 3 times a day for 2 weeks. This amount is within the acceptable daily intake of these sweeteners.
The intervention groups were compared to two control groups, one of which took sachets of glucose and the other nothing at all.
The researchers took various measurements throughout the study:
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1. The participants wore blood sugar monitors for a total of 4 weeks, beginning 1 week prior to treatment and ending 1 week after the conclusion of treatment.
2. They were given nine glucose tolerance tests throughout the study to assess how well their bodies controlled their blood sugar after consuming sugar.
3. They were asked to give daily stool and saliva samples that the scientists tested for bacterial composition.
4. They gave weekly blood samples that were tested for the metabolites that are byproducts of digestion.
What did the researchers find?
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1. The glucose tolerance tests revealed blood sugar spikes in the saccharin and sucralose groups but not in the other groups. Notably, these spikes did not appear in the glucose group.
2. The stool and saliva samples revealed that all four artificial sweeteners changed the makeup of the bacterial colonies in the subjects’ mouths and guts to types linked with abnormal glucose processing.
3. The blood tests in the saccharin and sucralose groups revealed metabolites linked with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
When the researchers transplanted the participants’ stool samples into mice, they noticed that the mice also displayed impaired glucose processing and blood sugar spikes, proving that it was the bacterial changes caused by the sweeteners that led to these impairments, not the sweeteners themselves.
This is serious because a bacterial colony is difficult to change once it consists of species that impair your body’s glucose processing.
The most alarming part of these findings is that these sweeteners are extremely difficult to avoid as they are included in an incredible number of food products.
In fact, they don’t only appear in products that we typically think of as sweet, such as sodas, drink mixes, puddings, candy, and jellies; they are also present in ketchup, salad dressings, bread, yogurt, granola, canned fruit, and many other products.