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Both artificial sweeteners and certain gut microbes have previously been linked to obesity, and according to the latest research, artificial sweeteners may raise your risk of diabetes by disrupting your intestinal microflora. According to the authors of the widely publicized study:1

“[W]e demonstrate that consumption of commonly used non-caloric artificial sweeteners formulations drives the development of glucose intolerance through induction of compositional and functional alterations to the intestinal microbiota.”

The researchers found that artificial sweeteners alter certain metabolic pathways associated with metabolic disease, and that it can induce gut dysbiosis and glucose intolerance in otherwise healthy people.

Glucose intolerance is a condition in which your body loses its ability to cope with high amounts of sugar, and it’s a well-known precursor to type 2 diabetes. It also plays a role in obesity, because the excess sugar in your blood ends up being stored in your fat cells.

The fact that artificial sweeteners may exacerbate metabolic disorders like diabetes is a severe blow to diabetics who dutifully follow recommendations to switch to diet foods and beverages in order to control their diabetes.

The fact that artificial sweeteners are NOT a dieter’s nor a diabetic’s best friend has been known by researchers for some time. The problem is that it hasn’t received the necessary traction in the media-until now.2, 3

“Collectively, our results link non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS) consumption, dysbiosis and metabolic abnormalities, thereby calling for a reassessment of massive NAS usage,” the researchers note.

Artificial Sweeteners Can Cause Glucose Intolerance by Altering Your Microbiome

The researchers initially started out testing the artificial sweeteners saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose in mice, and were “surprised” when the mice developed glucose intolerance.

As noted by New York University microbiologist Martin Blaser,4 no one had previously considered that artificial sweeteners might exacerbate metabolic disease
by way of the microbiome.

Of the three non-caloric sweeteners tested, saccharin had the most pronounced effect on glucose levels. This led to a human trial, in which data from 400 people enrolled in a nutritional study were assessed.