Artificial Sweeteners and Diabetes is There a Link?



Reaching for artificial sweeteners to avoid sugar may be trading one evil for another, a new study suggests. For some people, artificial sweeteners may lead to type 2 diabetes as directly as eating sugar does, according to the research, published Wednesday.

The benefits and risks of artificial sweeteners have been debated for decades. Some studies show no link to diabetes and others suggest there is one. The new research, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, finds that differences in gut microbes may explain why some people can handle artificial sweeteners just fine while in an unknown percentage of others the sweeteners lead to diabetes. The human digestive system is home to millions of microbes, largely bacteria, that help digest food and may play a role in health. The researchers were quick to note that their work needs to be repeated before it's clear whether artificial sweeteners truly can trigger diabetes.

Artificial sweeteners cannot be digested, so it was assumed that there would be no way for them to lead to diabetes. Microbes seem to provide the missing link. In a series of experiments in mice and people, the researchers examined the interaction between gut microbes and consumption of the sweeteners aspartame, sucralose and saccharine. Depending on the types of microbes they had in their intestines, some people and mice saw a two- to fourfold increase in blood sugars after consuming the artificial sweeteners for a short time. Over time, high blood sugar levels can lead to diabetes.

"The magnitude of the differences were not just a few percentages. These were actually very dramatic differences we saw both in the mice and in the human settings," said Eran Segal, a study co-author who is a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute.

The study involved several parts:

• A diet study of 400 people found that those who consumed the most artificial sweeteners were more likely to have problems controlling blood sugar.
• Seven people who did not normally consume artificial sweeteners were followed intensively over a week as they were fed controlled amounts of saccharine. Four of the seven showed significant increases in blood sugar levels.
• Mice fed the sweetener saccharine saw dramatic increases in their blood sugar levels.
• Mice with no gut microbes did not see increases in blood sugar levels when they ate artificial sweeteners. Once these bug-free mice were treated with the feces of normal mice that had eaten artificial sweeteners, their blood sugar levels spiked upon eating artificial sweeteners, suggesting that the gut bugs were the driving force in the reaction.
         
The mouse research in particular was "beautifully performed and elegantly done," said Cathryn Nagler, who researches the connection between gut bugs and food allergies at the University of Chicago and wrote a commentary about the study in Nature. The one piece the study was missing, Nagler said, was an explanation for how different gut bug populations might change someone's ability to process artificial sweeteners. In trying to understand why certain diseases like food allergies and diabetes have been increasing, Nagler said she looks to things that change gut microbes, such as the introduction of antibiotics, changes in diet, Cesarean-section births, the introduction of formula and the elimination of infectious diseases.
"Now," she said, "I would add artificial sweeteners to this list."

Gutsy Grandma Advocates for All of Us! Good Job Doris Ace! Medicare Fraud--



Authorities in Texas are investigating how an active 82-year-old grandmother was diagnosed as homebound, with a range of illnesses she did not have, including Type 2 diabetes, opening the door to potentially tens of thousands of dollars in Medicare payments for home health care, supplies and equipment she did not need.

A hidden camera recorded the undercover grandmother's visit to a doctor in McAllen, Texas, where she told the doctor and nurses she exercised regularly and, other than some hypertension and arthritis, was in excellent health. "I've really enjoyed good health all my life, God's been good to me," the doctor was told by Doris Ace,yet the official certification sent to Medicare for home health care services indicate she was homebound and suffered from two internal infections, incontinence and needs "assistance in all activities, unable to safely leave home."

 

 

On a patient referral form for home health care service, signed by the doctor, our undercover grandmother was also wrongly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, even though she was not given a blood test which doctors say is the only way to diagnose diabetes.  

 

McAllen is considered a hot spot of Medicare fraud by the Inspector General's office which has already brought cases against a number of doctors- health care agencies and has many others under investigation. They have ten of the top physicians who have billed nearly $200 million in one specialty last year alone. Nationwide, the Inspector General's office estimates that $60 billion dollars of taxpayer money is lost to unchecked Medicare fraud every year.