Artificial sweeteners are very useful for people who do not tolerate sugar. We all need some sweetness in our lives to bring out the flavours of the tea or make coffee a little less bitter. Saccharin, aspartame and other common artificial sweeteners are great alternatives to sugar. However, a new study from the University of Queensland revealed that common artificial sweeteners may promote antibiotic resistance.
Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin are very helpful for those who cannot consume sugar, but they do have their downsides. Image credit: Senado Federal via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)
Scientists were wondering if there is a link between antibiotic resistance and artificial sweeteners. The world consumes a lot of artificial sweeteners – more than 117,000 tonnes per year. This is why it is important to fully understand the positive and negative effects it may have on people and public health. Scientists in Australia now tested four commonly consumed artificial sweeteners – saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium – to see if they could be linked to antibiotic resistance, which is a growing threat. And they found that this link does exist.
Researchers found that these common artificial sweeteners significantly accelerated the exchange of bacteria through a process known as conjugation, which is something like abacterial equivalent of sexual reproduction. In other words, sweeteners help resistance genes to pass from one bacteria onto another one and the resistance spreads across the microflora, making many treatable infections more and more difficult to cure with conventional antibiotics.
Zhigang Yu, one of the authors of the study, said: “Given the high consumption of non-antibiotic pharmaceuticals, our findings highlight the potential risk associated with the presence of artificial sweeteners in our food and drinks. It is becoming clear that we need to be very careful in our use of these common products, as overuse can rapidly increase the problems brought on by antimicrobial resistance.” However, it is very unlikely that we will find ways to reduce our consumption of artificial sweeteners.
People choose artificial sweeteners as an alternative to sugar for several different reasons. Some are counting their calories (sweeteners may have no calories at all), some cannot tolerate sugar for health reasons. If there will be no alternative, consumption of artificial sweeteners is unlikely to go down any time soon.
Antibiotic resistance is a scary thing. Essentially, bacteria is becoming more and more resistant to our common antibiotics. This means that we need new stronger antibiotics all the time and at the end we won’t have any tool left to treat some infections. That is why scientists are cracking down on antibiotic resistance looking for all possible causes.
Source: University of Queensland
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