Photo Courtesy of NCSU - Alexander Gray
Researchers at North Carolina State University published a study that concludes a well-known sweetener contains a chemical that damages DNA.
According to the study, sucralose, under the brand name Splenda and 600 times sweeter than table sugar, was the subject of the study. Researchers discovered that when Splenda or sucralose is ingested, “several fat-soluble compounds” form in the gut — one of them being the “genotoxic” sucralose-6 acetate.
NCSU researchers experimented by exposing sucralose-6-acetate to human blood cells in vitro.
“In short, we found that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic and that it effectively broke up DNA in cells that were exposed to the chemical,” Susan Schiffman, corresponding author of the study and an adjunct professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in the study’s release.
“Other studies have found that sucralose can adversely affect gut health, so we wanted to see what might be happening there. 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,” Schiffman explained.
“A leaky gut is problematic because it means that things that would normally be flushed out of the body in feces are instead leaking out of the gut and being absorbed into the bloodstream.”
Researchers also observed the gut cells’ response to sucralose-6-acetate, finding “increased activity in genes related to oxidative stress, inflammation and carcinogenicity.”
The FDA wouldn’t approve a sweetener if it were highly harmful. Therefore, sucralose is FDA-approved to be placed in food. However, they recommend people in the US stick with the acceptable daily intake of 5 mg per kilogram (2.2 Ib) of body weight. So, a person weighing 150 (68 kg) could safely consume 340 mg of sucralose daily.