One of the most widespread ill healths pestering modern-day humans is overweight and obesity. As of 2016, an estimated 13% of the world's adult population were found to be battling obesity while a whopping 39% were found to be suffering from the issue of being overweight source. Being obese or overweight is not really the issue, but the health challenges such as diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, and poor mental health that have been found to be associated with the two phenomena source.
How does one get overweight or obese? I know many of you might already be asking this question. Being overweight has been attributed to a host of factors, including family history or genetics, some underlining health conditions, being on certain drugs, dietary lifestyle, sedentary lifestyle, among many others source. Basically, both conditions result when the amount of calories taken in is more than the amount being burned, leading to the excess being stored as fat in the body.
Calories are taken in when we consume foods and are burned by when we respire. The respiratory process rate increases with an increase in the physical activities of individuals. Thus, when one lives a sedentary lifestyle, they burn very few calories and unless they take in as low calories, such individuals may end up becoming overweight or even obese with time. This is why aerobic exercises are recommended for people with sedentary lifestyles.
Overweight or obese individuals who are seeking redemption often look to consume as low calorific foods as possible or, at least, burn more calories than they consume. This is one of the reasons many of them deliberately stay away from high calorific foods such as free sugar as much as they can. Free sugar is one of the most calorific foods one can consume. A 100g of granulated sugar contains about 387 calories.
Apart from the fact that free sugars generally have high calories, many people try to stay away from them as much as possible due to increased chances of developing diabetes as a result of their consumption, especially those that are predisposed to being diabetic. Because most people cannot do with sweet things, many try to substitute high calorific sugars with low-calorie artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame.
Over the years, these low-calorie sweeteners have gradually warmed their ways into the heart of many because they offer the same sweet taste like sugar but without the high-calorie or diabetes-inducing abilities of free sugars. They are used in the place of sugar in many popular products such as soft drinks and processed foods. However, research investigations have revealed that artificial sweeteners may not be as safe as many initially thought.
The gut of humans is filled with a variety of microbes that lives in symbiotic association with their host. The human gut provides them with homes and foods while in return, they help us with digestion and what not. This kind of relationship is mutually beneficial and the microbes are considered as normal flora of the body system. They do not harm humans in any way unless something significant occurs, like consuming artificial sweeteners, then they become opportunistic.
The research investigation conducted by Shil and Chichger in 2021 revealed that artificial sweeteners have the potential to make otherwise non-virulent gut microbes become virulent. The acquisition of virulence factors may cause the microbes to invade the cells of the gut and cause different degrees of ulcerations.
Not just that, these microbes may eventually find their way into the bloodstream causing what is medically known as sepsis. The presence of bacteria in the bloodstream can have a host of negative multiplier effects such as hypertension, organ failure, and even coronary diseases.
How artificial sweeteners are able to make beneficial gut microbes become virulent is what scientists are yet to fully understand. One explanation is that the sweeteners increase the capacity of the microbes to attach to the cells that line the walls of the gut. Another says that sweeteners induce the formation of biofilms in the gut, leading to the production of toxic products that could damage the gut.
In another investigation which was conducted in 2015, artificial sweeteners were found to exponentially increase the population of gut microbes as well as decreased the capacity of the body system to metabolize sugar. In order words, artificial sweeteners toyed with the normal glucose metabolism and caused the body glucose level to increase in the experimental rats. This means sweeteners might be low in calories, but also have the potential to cause diabetes albeit indirectly
It is however important to note that these research are not outrightly conclusive but open the door to more relevant investigations to be conducted on the subject. Further investigations will throw more light and the scientific world would be briefed accordingly.
Thank you all for reading.