Personalized microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance, Suez et al, 2022

Highlights

• Randomized-controlled trial on the effects of non-nutritive sweeteners in humans
• Sucralose and saccharin supplementation impairs glycemic response in healthy adults
• Personalized effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on microbiome and metabolome
• Impacts on the microbiome are causally linked to elevated glycemic response

Summary

Non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) are commonly integrated into human diet and presumed to be inert; however, animal studies suggest that they may impact the microbiome and downstream glycemic responses.

We causally assessed NNS impacts in humans and their microbiomes in a randomized-controlled trial encompassing 120 healthy adults, administered saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, and stevia sachets for 2 weeks in doses lower than the acceptable daily intake, compared with controls receiving sachet-contained vehicle glucose or no supplement.

As groups, each administered NNS distinctly altered stool and oral microbiome and plasma metabolome, whereas saccharin and sucralose significantly impaired glycemic responses.

Importantly, gnotobiotic mice conventionalized with microbiomes from multiple top and bottom responders of each of the four NNS-supplemented groups featured glycemic responses largely reflecting those noted in respective human donors, which were preempted by distinct microbial signals, as exemplified by sucralose.

Collectively, human NNS consumption may induce person-specific, microbiome-dependent glycemic alterations, necessitating future assessment of clinical implications.

Graphical abstract



https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9

 

Expert reactions collected by the Science Media Centre: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...rs-on-human-microbiomes-and-glycaemic-levels/

 

Thomas Delauer a few years ago tested his own response to the various sweeteners to see which caused an insulin response using a continuous insulin response patch. The results were quite interesting and he showed some of the sweeteners did spike his insulin. I seem to recall a few of the keto diet people doing this but one of his more recent videos on the differences between the sweeteners and the impact of them is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuMfysSbIq4

Its good to see this has made it from a sample of N=1 ish towards a full study. Its interesting also that we are looking at the impact on the microbiome, we have know for a while that Aspartame kills bacteria so its interesting to see all of them tested in this regard given how important the microbiome appears to be.

 

He's talking so fast that it's hard to be sure - perhaps someone else can check? But I think that he referred at least three times to rodent studies and talked of some of them as though they represented what happened in humans. This is not the case.

He also didn't mention that xylitol is toxic to dogs. This is very important, as it's often used in chocolate, which dogs are partial to, and dogs have died from consuming xylitol-sweetened chocolate.