The sugar substitute E961 (neotame), used in chewing gum and cakes, among other things, can have a “toxic effect on health”, and damage intestinal bacteria, suggested a recent study.
Consumption of just a small amount of the sweetener neotame can trigger irritable bowel syndrome, insulin resistance, and even sepsis, a condition that kills about 40 000 in Britain a year, said the researchers, with their findings “underlining that some of a new generation of sweeteners that give food products a super-sweet taste can have a toxic effect on health”.
Co-authors Dr Havovi Chichger, an associate professor at the UK’s Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and Dr Aparna Shil, of Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, said neotame could damage the intestine by causing “good bacteria” to become diseased and invade the gut wall. In the process that could lead to illness because the epithelial barrier, part of the gut wall, could break down.
Chichger said that while sweeteners could be a healthier alternative to sugar, some could harm consumers, reports The Guardian.
Neotame was developed in 2002 as a substitute for aspartame – a sweetener which has aroused concerns – and become widely in drinks and foodstuffs worldwide. It is often referred to as E961 on ingredient lists on labels of products.
The findings, the first to show that neotame can have that damaging impact on healthy gut bacteria, were published in Frontiers in Nutrition.
Previous research, including by Chichger, found that other common sweeteners like saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame, have similar harmful effects.
Chichger said: “There is now growing awareness of the health impacts of sweeteners like these, with our own previous work demonstrating the problems they can cause to the wall of the intestine and the damage to the ‘good bacteria’ which form in our gut.
“This can lead to a range of potential health issues including diarrhoea, intestinal inflammation, and even infections such as septicaemia if the bacteria were to enter the bloodstream. Therefore, it is important to also study sweeteners that have been introduced more recently, and our new research demonstrates that neotame causes similar problems, including gut bacteria becoming diseased.”
The co-authors said further research was needed to look into “the toxic effects of some of the artificial sweeteners that have been developed more recently”, given their widespread use. Some of the newest sweeteners being used produce a sweet taste that is 1 000 times sweeter than sugar.
Even a low intake of neotame might be harmful, Chichger added. “Even when we studied neotame at very low concentrations, 10 times lower than the acceptable daily intake, we saw the breakdown of the gut barrier and a shift in bacteria to a more damaging behaviour, including increased invasion of healthy gut cells leading to cell death. This can be linked to issues such as irritable bowel diseases and sepsis.”
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) ruled in 2010 that neotame was “safe for use”. It has since been approved for use in more than 35 countries.
But EFDA is now reviewing the safety of neotame as part of what Chichger said is a series of evidence-based risk assessments that may lead to a reassessment of certain sweeteners.
Study details
The artificial sweetener neotame negatively regulates the intestinal epithelium directly through T1R3-signaling and indirectly through pathogenic changes to model gut bacteria
Aparna Shil, Luisa Maria Ladeira Faria, Caray Anne Walker, Havovi Chichger.
Published in Frontiers in Nutrition on 24 April 2024
Introduction
Recent studies have indicated considerable health risks associated with the consumption of artificial sweeteners. Neotame is a relatively new sweetener in the global market however there is still limited data on the impact of neotame on the intestinal epithelium or the commensal microbiota.
Methods
In the present study, we use a model of the intestinal epithelium (Caco-2) and microbiota (Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis) to investigate how physiologically-relevant exposure of neotame impacts intestinal epithelial cell function, gut bacterial metabolism and pathogenicity, and gut epithelium-microbiota interactions.
Results
Our findings show that neotame causes intestinal epithelial cell apoptosis and death with siRNA knockdown of T1R3 expression significantly attenuating the neotame-induced loss to cell viability. Similarly, neotame exposure results in barrier disruption with enhanced monolayer leak and reduced claudin-3 cell surface expression through a T1R3-dependent pathway. Using the gut bacteria models, E. coli and E. faecalis, neotame significantly increased biofilm formation and metabolites of E. coli, but not E. faecalis, reduced Caco-2 cell viability. In co-culture studies, neotame exposure increased adhesion capacity of E. coli and E. faecalis onto Caco-2 cells and invasion capacity of E. coli. Neotame-induced biofilm formation, E.coli-specific Caco-2 cell death, adhesion and invasion was identified to be meditated through a taste-dependent pathway.
Discussion
Our study identifies novel pathogenic effects of neotame on the intestinal epithelium or bacteria alone, and in co-cultures to mimic the gut microbiome. These findings demonstrate the need to better understand food additives common in the global market and the molecular mechanisms underlying potential negative health impacts.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Artificial sweetener warning from WHO
Non-nutritive sweeteners linked to heart disease and cancer
Artificial sweeteners’ link to higher risk of heart disease – French study