Common sweetener may damage DNA

A study has found that a chemical formed when a popular sweetener is digested is “genotoxic”, meaning it breaks up DNA. The chemical is also found in trace amounts in the sweetener itself, according to the study.

According to Susan Schiffman, corresponding author of the study and professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the research found that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic and trace amounts of it can be found in off-the-shelf sucralose, even before it is consumed and metabolised.

“To put this in context, the European Food Safety Authority has a threshold of toxicological concern for all genotoxic substances of 0.15 micrograms per person per day,” Schiffman said. “Our work suggests that the trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in a single, daily sucralose-sweetened drink exceed that threshold. And that’s not even accounting for the amount of sucralose-6-acetate produced as metabolites after people consume sucralose.”

The researchers conducted a series of in vitro experiments that exposed human blood cells to sucralose-6-acetate and monitored for markers of genotoxicity. They found that it effectively broke up DNA in cells exposed to the chemical.

The researchers also conducted in vitro tests that exposed human gut tissues to sucralose-6-acetate.

“Other studies have found that sucralose can adversely affect gut health, so we wanted to see what might be happening there,” Schiffman said. “When we exposed sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate to gut epithelial tissues — the tissue that lines your gut wall — we found that both chemicals cause ‘leaky gut’. Basically, they make the wall of the gut more permeable. The chemicals damage the ‘tight junctions’, or interfaces, where cells in the gut wall connect to each other.

“A leaky gut is problematic, because it means that things that would normally be flushed out of the body in faeces are instead leaking out of the gut and being absorbed into the bloodstream.”

The researchers also looked at the genetic activity of the gut cells to see how they responded to the presence of sucralose-6-acetate.

“We found that gut cells exposed to sucralose-6-acetate had increased activity in genes related to oxidative stress, inflammation and carcinogenicity,” Schiffman said.

The paper, Toxicological and pharmacokinetic properties of sucralose-6-acetate and its parent sucralose: in vitro screening assays, is published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B.

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