A recent research completed at Ben Gurion University together with the Institute of Sport Research, Singapore show how artificial sweeteners and sport nutrition products containing them where toxic to the model gut microbioma. Unfortunately many sport nutrition products still contain artificial sweeteners. It is time for a change.
Artificial sweeteners, also called non-nutritional sweeteners, are a class of sugar substitutes that has been, and still is, widely used in sports nutrition as they are non-caloric. These artificial compounds have been developed mainly for food use targeted to people with various pathologies, like diabetes or severe obesity. Their use in common food nutrition or, more so, in specialised sport nutrition, has always been questioned, and, while the consumption of artificial sweeteners has been linked to a number of severe adverse effects, like metabolic disorders and gut alteration, there is still no consensus on their health consequences.
Recently, artificial sweeteners have also been highlighted as potentially highly damaging compounds for our environment and for the water system, coming to the conclusion that they might be considered as a pollutant.
The recent, collaborative study authored by leading researches of Ben Gurion University, Israel, and published on Molecules (Harpaz et al.: 2018, 23, 2454) comes to a serious conclusion: the assumption of artificial sweeteners is seriously toxicfor the model gut microbiota and so can lead to important gut alteration and adversities.
The study considered six of the most common artificial sweeteners and 10 of the most sold sport nutrition products containing them. The results are astonishing and should be diffused and know by all athletes. Citing verbatim the peer-reviewed paper:
“The toxicity effect of six artificial sweeteners and ten sports supplements was evaluated by the exposure to a bio-reporter panel, which consists of three different bacterial strains …the triggered luminescent and affected growth rates indicate that all tested sport supplements were toxic to the bacteria The indigenous gastrointestinal tract micro-flora has profound effects on the anatomical, physiological and immunological development of the host ... In this study, we demonstrated the toxicity effect …With this consideration, we may speculate that the response observed in our study may be relevant to gut microbiome and thus may influence human health. Moreover, since artificial sweeteners are resistant to wastewater treatment processes, they have been identified as emerging environmental pollutants”.
It seems now scientifically evident that the assumption of artificial sweeteners might have a negative impact on the gut microbiota, one of the key player in individual’s health. If this is the risk, why not choosing sport nutrition products that are free from artificial sweeteners? Crownhealth range is completely free of any artificial compoundand we only use natural products to achieve the correct sweetness and the proper nutritional content. With Crownhealth the choice is easy: we do not use artificial sweeteners, but we do not add sucrose or maltodextrins or fructose syrups, other ingredients that have been recently questioned. We only use natural products, like our special dates paste for our delicious bars.
Choose Crownhealth and move with us towards a more sustainable and gut friendly nutrition!