Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women Might Have a New Reason to Ditch Artificial Sweeteners
A mom cradles her newborn baby.
Women considering pregnancy might have another reason to drop artificial sweeteners from their diet, if a new study of mice proves to apply to humans as well. It highlights "yet another potential health impact of zero-calorie sweeteners," according to lead author Stephanie Olivier-Van Stichelen.
The discovery was serendipitous, not part of the original study.
It found that commonly used artificial sweeteners consumed by female mice transfer to pups in the womb and later through milk, harming their development. The sweeteners affected the composition of bacteria in the gut of the pups, making them more vulnerable to developing diabetes, and greatly reduced the liver's capacity to neutralize toxins.
The discovery was serendipitous, not part of the original study, says John Hanover, the senior author and a cell biologist at the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The main study looked at how a high sugar diet in the mother turns genes on and off in the developing offspring.
It compared them with mothers fed a low sugar diet, replacing sugar with a mix of sucralose and acesulfame-K (AK), two non-nutrient artificial sugars that are already used extensively in our food products and thought to be safe.
While the artificial sweeteners had little effect on the mothers, the trace amounts that were transferred through the placenta and milk had a profound effect on the pups. Hanover believes the molecules are changing gene expression during a crucial, short period of development.
"Somewhat to our surprise, we saw in the pups a really dramatic change in the microbiome" of those whose mothers were fed the artificial sweeteners, Hanover told leapsmag. "It looked like the neonates were much, much more sensitive than their mothers to the sucralose and AK." The unexpected discovery led them to publish a separate paper.
"The protective microbe Akkermansia was largely missing, and we saw a pretty dramatic shift in the ratio of two bacteria that are normally associated with metabolic disease," a precursor to diabetes, he explains. Akkermansia is a bacteria that feeds on mucus in the gut and helps remodel the tissue to an adult state over the first several months of life in a mouse. A similar process takes several years in humans, as the infant is weaned off of breast milk as the primary food source.
The good news is the body seems to remove these artificial sweeteners fairly quickly, probably within a week.
Another problem the researchers saw in the animals was "a particularly striking change in the metabolism of the detoxification systems" in the liver, says Hanover. A healthy liver is dark red, but a high dose of the artificial sweeteners turned it white, "which is a sign of massive problems."
The study was conducted in mice and Hanover cautions the findings may not apply to humans. "But in general, the microbiome changes that one sees in the rodent model mimics what we see in humans...[and] the genes that are turned on in the mouse and the human are very similar."
Hanover acknowledges the quantity of artificial sweeteners used in the study is on the high end of human consumption, roughly the equivalent of 20 cans of diet soda a day. But the sweeteners are so ubiquitous in consumer products, from foods to lipstick, and often not even mentioned on the label, that it is difficult to measure just how much a person consumes every day.
The good news is the body seems to remove these artificial sweeteners fairly quickly, probably within a week. Until further studies provide a clearer picture, women who want to err on the side of caution can choose to reduce if not eliminate their exposure to artificial sweeteners during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Here's how one doctor overcame extraordinary odds to help create the birth control pill
Dr. Percy Julian had so many personal and professional obstacles throughout his life, it’s amazing he was able to accomplish anything at all. But this hidden figure not only overcame these incredible obstacles, he also laid the foundation for the creation of the birth control pill.
Julian’s first obstacle was growing up in the Jim Crow-era south in the early part of the twentieth century, where racial segregation kept many African-Americans out of schools, libraries, parks, restaurants, and more. Despite limited opportunities and education, Julian was accepted to DePauw University in Indiana, where he majored in chemistry. But in college, Julian encountered another obstacle: he wasn’t allowed to stay in DePauw’s student housing because of segregation. Julian found lodging in an off-campus boarding house that refused to serve him meals. To pay for his room, board, and food, Julian waited tables and fired furnaces while he studied chemistry full-time. Incredibly, he graduated in 1920 as valedictorian of his class.
After graduation, Julian landed a fellowship at Harvard University to study chemistry—but here, Julian ran into yet another obstacle. Harvard thought that white students would resent being taught by Julian, an African-American man, so they withdrew his teaching assistantship. Julian instead decided to complete his PhD at the University of Vienna in Austria. When he did, he became one of the first African Americans to ever receive a PhD in chemistry.
Julian received offers for professorships, fellowships, and jobs throughout the 1930s, due to his impressive qualifications—but these offers were almost always revoked when schools or potential employers found out Julian was black. In one instance, Julian was offered a job at the Institute of Paper Chemistory in Appleton, Wisconsin—but Appleton, like many cities in the United States at the time, was known as a “sundown town,” which meant that black people weren’t allowed to be there after dark. As a result, Julian lost the job.
During this time, Julian became an expert at synthesis, which is the process of turning one substance into another through a series of planned chemical reactions. Julian synthesized a plant compound called physostigmine, which would later become a treatment for an eye disease called glaucoma.
In 1936, Julian was finally able to land—and keep—a job at Glidden, and there he found a way to extract soybean protein. This was used to produce a fire-retardant foam used in fire extinguishers to smother oil and gasoline fires aboard ships and aircraft carriers, and it ended up saving the lives of thousands of soldiers during World War II.
At Glidden, Julian found a way to synthesize human sex hormones such as progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone, from plants. This was a hugely profitable discovery for his company—but it also meant that clinicians now had huge quantities of these hormones, making hormone therapy cheaper and easier to come by. His work also laid the foundation for the creation of hormonal birth control: Without the ability to synthesize these hormones, hormonal birth control would not exist.
Julian left Glidden in the 1950s and formed his own company, called Julian Laboratories, outside of Chicago, where he manufactured steroids and conducted his own research. The company turned profitable within a year, but even so Julian’s obstacles weren’t over. In 1950 and 1951, Julian’s home was firebombed and attacked with dynamite, with his family inside. Julian often had to sit out on the front porch of his home with a shotgun to protect his family from violence.
But despite years of racism and violence, Julian’s story has a happy ending. Julian’s family was eventually welcomed into the neighborhood and protected from future attacks (Julian’s daughter lives there to this day). Julian then became one of the country’s first black millionaires when he sold his company in the 1960s.
When Julian passed away at the age of 76, he had more than 130 chemical patents to his name and left behind a body of work that benefits people to this day.
Therapies for Healthy Aging with Dr. Alexandra Bause
My guest today is Dr. Alexandra Bause, a biologist who has dedicated her career to advancing health, medicine and healthier human lifespans. Dr. Bause co-founded a company called Apollo Health Ventures in 2017. Currently a venture partner at Apollo, she's immersed in the discoveries underway in Apollo’s Venture Lab while the company focuses on assembling a team of investors to support progress. Dr. Bause and Apollo Health Ventures say that biotech is at “an inflection point” and is set to become a driver of important change and economic value.
Previously, Dr. Bause worked at the Boston Consulting Group in its healthcare practice specializing in biopharma strategy, among other priorities
She did her PhD studies at Harvard Medical School focusing on molecular mechanisms that contribute to cellular aging, and she’s also a trained pharmacist
In the episode, we talk about the present and future of therapeutics that could increase people’s spans of health, the benefits of certain lifestyle practice, the best use of electronic wearables for these purposes, and much more.
Dr. Bause is at the forefront of developing interventions that target the aging process with the aim of ensuring that all of us can have healthier, more productive lifespans.
