Artificial Sweeteners Tied To Glucose Intolerance, Altered Gut Microbiota.

YIKES according to a study published online Sept. 17 in the journal Nature, “reaching for artificial sweeteners to avoid sugar may be trading one evil for another.” Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel posit that “differences in gut microbes may explain why some people can handle artificial sweeteners just fine while in an unknown percentage of others the sweeteners lead to diabetes.”

 Artificial sweeteners cannot be digested, so it was assumed that there would be no way for them to lead to diabetes. Microbes seem to provide the missing link.

In a series of experiments in mice and people, the researchers examined the interaction between gut microbes and consumption of the sweeteners aspartame, sucralose and saccharine. Depending on the types of microbes they had in their intestines, some people and mice saw a two- to fourfold increase in blood sugars after consuming the artificial sweeteners for a short time. Over time, high blood sugar levels can lead to diabetes.  Mice with no gut microbes did not see increases in blood sugar levels when they ate artificial sweeteners. Once these bug-free mice were treated with the feces of normal mice that had eaten artificial sweeteners, their blood sugar levels spiked upon eating artificial sweeteners, suggesting that the gut bugs were the driving force in the reaction.  I get BAD GAS from ALL of these sweeteners but my siblings do not. I wonder if that means my bacteria are the bad ones and raise my glucose levels???  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/17/artificial-sweetener-diabetes/15777225/

Based on existing evidence, guidelines jointly published in 2012 by the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association noted that artificial sweeteners "when used judiciously…could facilitate reductions in added sugar," and thus influence weight loss.

The new Nature study marks a significant advance because it brings together two separate areas of research—the role of sweeteners in raising blood sugar levels, and the complex workings of the vast colonies of bacteria that inhabit the gut. Individuals can have differing bacterial colonies in their gut, meaning people respond differently to what they consume they found that several types of bacteria that changed after the consumption of artificial sweeteners previously had been associated with Type 2 diabetes in humans.

The results appears to demonstrate that for some people, artificial sweeteners can alter the composition of gut bacteria in such a way that it may contribute to—rather than reduce—certain metabolic conditions related to obesity, such as glucose intolerance.

. http://online.wsj.com/articles/research-shows-zero-calorie-sweeteners-can-raise-blood-sugar-1410973201

She noted that many conditions, including obesity and diabetes, had been linked to changes in the microbiome.http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/artificial-sweeteners-may-disrupt-bodys-blood-sugar-controls/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=health&_r=0