Il sucralosioa common sweetener found in soft foods and beverages, is capable of damage DNA and cause leaky gut.
The scientist who led the research, Professor Susan S. Schiffmann, therefore believes that the regulatory status of the substance should be reviewed and further adds that we should really avoid products that contain it.
The most worrying thing is that this sweetener is already approved by major regulatory agencies, such as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and ESFA (the European Food Safety Authority.
Sucralose is indeed calorie-free, but it has a sweetening power 600 times greater than that of sugar and it is precisely for this reason that it is often used combined with other compounds to dampen its effects.
This substance was condemned by a team of American researchers from the Joint Departments of Biomedical Engineering of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the State University of North Carolina, who collaborated with colleagues from the Department of Genetics and Biology and of Sciome LLC of Durham. The researchers have come, through very accurate experiments, to disconcerting conclusions.
First, the study authors specified that the substance of concern is technically the sucralose-6-acetate, a fat-soluble compound that forms in the intestine when we ingest products that contain sucralose. In other words, it is a metabolite. Researchers have also found traces of this substance in “normal” sucralose, before it is metabolized by the body. This represents a further problem in light of the discovery just made.
By testing the substance on human blood cells in vitro, it was found that it has an effect genotoxicsaid in simpler words “damages the DNA”.
“In short, we found that sucralose-6-acetate was genotoxic and actually broke down DNA in cells that were exposed to the chemical,” the study’s lead author said in a news release.
To determine this, they used a MultiFlow® test and a micronucleus (MN) test capable of detecting genotoxicity; have shown that the substance is clastogenic, i.e. it causes breakage at the level of the DNA films.