One of the most widespread ill healths pestering modern-day humans is overweight and obesity. As of 2016, an estimated 13% of the world's adult population were found to be battling obesity while a whopping 39% were found to be suffering from the issue of being overweight source. Being obese or overweight is not really the issue, but the health challenges such as diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, and poor mental health that have been found to be associated with the two phenomena source.
How does one get overweight or obese? I know many of you might already be asking this question. Being overweight has been attributed to a host of factors, including family history or genetics, some underlining health conditions, being on certain drugs, dietary lifestyle, sedentary lifestyle, among many others source. Basically, both conditions result when the amount of calories taken in is more than the amount being burned, leading to the excess being stored as fat in the body.
Calories are taken in when we consume foods and are burned by when we respire. The respiratory process rate increases with an increase in the physical activities of individuals. Thus, when one lives a sedentary lifestyle, they burn very few calories and unless they take in as low calories, such individuals may end up becoming overweight or even obese with time. This is why aerobic exercises are recommended for people with sedentary lifestyles.
Overweight or obese individuals who are seeking redemption often look to consume as low calorific foods as possible or, at least, burn more calories than they consume. This is one of the reasons many of them deliberately stay away from high calorific foods such as free sugar as much as they can. Free sugar is one of the most calorific foods one can consume. A 100g of granulated sugar contains about 387 calories.
Apart from the fact that free sugars generally have high calories, many people try to stay away from them as much as possible due to increased chances of developing diabetes as a result of their consumption, especially those that are predisposed to being diabetic. Because most people cannot do with sweet things, many try to substitute high calorific sugars with low-calorie artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame.
Over the years, these low-calorie sweeteners have gradually warmed their ways into the heart of many because they offer the same sweet taste like sugar but without the high-calorie or diabetes-inducing abilities of free sugars. They are used in the place of sugar in many popular products such as soft drinks and processed foods. However, research investigations have revealed that artificial sweeteners may not be as safe as many initially thought.
The gut of humans is filled with a variety of microbes that lives in symbiotic association with their host. The human gut provides them with homes and foods while in return, they help us with digestion and what not. This kind of relationship is mutually beneficial and the microbes are considered as normal flora of the body system. They do not harm humans in any way unless something significant occurs, like consuming artificial sweeteners, then they become opportunistic.
The research investigation conducted by Shil and Chichger in 2021 revealed that artificial sweeteners have the potential to make otherwise non-virulent gut microbes become virulent. The acquisition of virulence factors may cause the microbes to invade the cells of the gut and cause different degrees of ulcerations.
Not just that, these microbes may eventually find their way into the bloodstream causing what is medically known as sepsis. The presence of bacteria in the bloodstream can have a host of negative multiplier effects such as hypertension, organ failure, and even coronary diseases.
How artificial sweeteners are able to make beneficial gut microbes become virulent is what scientists are yet to fully understand. One explanation is that the sweeteners increase the capacity of the microbes to attach to the cells that line the walls of the gut. Another says that sweeteners induce the formation of biofilms in the gut, leading to the production of toxic products that could damage the gut.
In another investigation which was conducted in 2015, artificial sweeteners were found to exponentially increase the population of gut microbes as well as decreased the capacity of the body system to metabolize sugar. In order words, artificial sweeteners toyed with the normal glucose metabolism and caused the body glucose level to increase in the experimental rats. This means sweeteners might be low in calories, but also have the potential to cause diabetes albeit indirectly
It is however important to note that these research are not outrightly conclusive but open the door to more relevant investigations to be conducted on the subject. Further investigations will throw more light and the scientific world would be briefed accordingly.
Thank you all for reading.
Posted with STEMGeeks
In short, we should just drink plain coffee, without milk and sugar ;)
More seriously, I am not surprised by those findings (in the sense that some unwanted effects have been found). I have never trusted these artificial sweeteners at all. I am however curious about the process yielding the observed impact in our gut microbe (as @bhoa) for the first study. This may be related to theit composition.
In short, we shouldn't drink anything at all.
Cos when you drink without milk and sugar, you might now have caffeine toxicity.
When I look at science, I just tell myself that prevent what is possible to prevent and work on other things.
I have not done so much study on sweetener but I intend to have a look at it
There is what health tells us, and there is what we like. Very often, those are not very compatible. I personally like coffee a lot, but as a plain coffee. I know exaggerating is definitely not good for my health... but I like it, so, I only try not to exaggerate ;)
For the rest, it is at the end a matter of that there is no free lunch. There is always a price to pay and we need to live with it.
This was the question I was about to ask cos there are potentially a lot of bad things that can happen once the balance is off.
It's like what happens in the vagina when the vagina flora is altered but when it is in the gut it is more terrible.
I strongly doubt this tho but you can never say never in medicine
This sounds a lot more believable in my opinion. I mean what are the components of sweeteners?
Sugars don't cause diabetes, we might have to rephrase that sweeteners cause more stimulation of the beta cells in the pancreas and eventually wear them out leading to an increase in glucose in the bloodstream.
Very beautiful and engaging post. I wish I could write like you
Lovely dissection of the post. Thanks for the insight. You are not bad at writing either. Everyone with their unique styles and that's the beauty. If we all write the same way, here will be kinda boring.
Is there any association between the natural sugar to celiac disease ?
As sugar is a carbohydrate compound, I have heard the patient using gluten free artificial sweetners . It’s best for them to take the natural one isn’t it ?