Thread by @SuezLab

🚨Non-nutritive #sweeteners (saccharin, sucralose, stevia, aspartame) alter the human gut & oral #microbiome, leading to personalized detrimental impacts on glucose tolerance: our new RCT with @Yot_Coh @Elinav_Lab is out now in @CellCellPress! 1/🧵
authors.elsevier.com/c/1fcJDL7PXipT…

Sugar consumption is strongly linked to cardiometabolic disease risk. Are non-nutritive sweeteners the answer? As we @acritschristoph @yerpal_mxval @lilyklau recently reviewed, the literature is highly conflicted. The microbiome may be the solution...🧵2/n ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Our @EranElinav @Elinav_Lab 2014 report in @Nature was the first to demonstrate that disruption of gut bacteria (microbiome) by non-nutritive sweeteners causes glucose intolerance and that in humans, the microbiome may modulate personalized risk... 3/🧵 nature.com/articles/natur…

To extend our findings beyond that proof-of-concept study, we randomized 120 individuals to consume saccharin, sucralose, stevia, aspartame, or controls. We monitored glucose tolerance for 4 weeks & profiled their gut & oral microbiome, blood metabolome & anthropometrics... 4/🧵

Before I tell you what we found, I want to thank everyone who participated in this study and my friends & colleagues @Elinav_Lab for this tremendous 5-year effort: @Yot_Coh @uria_mor @rvaldesmas @DoriMally @sary82 @nivzmora @AvnerLeshem @HagitShapiro @EranElinav. And now... 5/🧵

We found that the human gut & oral microbiome is altered following exposure to saccharin, sucralose, stevia, or aspartame = NOT INERT. We also found that saccharin and sucralose significantly impair glucose tolerance. Is the microbiome responsible? 6/🧵 cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

We extensively transplanted microbiomes of human donors to sweetener-naive germ-free mice. Glucose tolerance of these mice reflected that of their human donors, suggesting that the microbiome may mediate personalized impacts of sweeteners on glucose tolerance. 7/🧵

CONCLUSION: non-nutritive sweeteners are not inert to the human body or the gut microbiome, and we need to continue studying long-term effects, including with at-risk populations. Sugar is not the answer - we should all aim to reduce sweetness overall. 🥤 Fin/🧵