人工合成甜味劑可能會清理掉腸道內部的有益細菌

Artificial sweeteners may evict good gut microbes

人工合成甜味劑可能會清理掉腸道內部的有益細菌

To avoid the calories in sugar, dieters often sweeten foods and drinks with no-calorie substitutes, such as saccharin. But this fake sugar could have unexpected side effects, a new study finds. Its authors show that a high-saccharin diet causes changes in mice and people that could lead to obesity or type 2 diabetes. The sweetener did that by altering microbes in the gut. Other sweeteners would likely cause similar problems, the researchers say.

爲避免糖分中過多的熱量，節食者通常會在飲料和食物中添加零熱量替代物將其變甜，比如說糖精。但是一項新研究發現這種"僞糖"也可能會產生意想不到的副作用。作者說明了高糖精飲食會引起老鼠和人體內部系統發生改變，通過改變腸道內的微細菌最終導致肥胖或二型糖尿病。研究者表示其他甜料也會引起類似的問題。

This research suggests "there could be unintended consequences" of using sugar substitutes, Robert Margolskee told Science News. He's a neuroscientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Pa. He was not involved in the new work. "This is very interesting and scary if it really does hold for humans," he says.

賓夕法尼亞州費城莫奈爾化學感官中心的神經系統科學家Robert Margolskee告訴科學新聞使用糖的替代品會有"意外結果"產生，Robert沒有參加此次研究，但他表示如果這一發現真的會給人類帶來這樣的結果那麼真的是既有趣又恐怖。

Until recently, most people thought artificial (no-calorie) sweeteners passed through the body without doing anything. That's what makes them appealing. They add a sweet taste without the caloric cost. Many diet foods, from soft drinks to desserts, are sweetened with these substances. But that may come with a different cost.

近來很多人仍以爲食用過人工甜味劑（零熱量糖精）後不會給身體造成任何影響。這也是它們吸引人的原因之一。它們會在不增加任何熱量的情況下把食物變甜。許多減肥食物，像軟飲和甜品等添加過這種甜料後都會變甜，但更大的代價可能也會隨之出現。

To probe the sweeteners' effects, Eran Segal and Eran Elinav ran tests on mice. Segal is a computational biologist. Elinav is an immunologist. Both researchers work at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. The researchers added artificial sweeteners to the animals' drinking water. Those sweeteners included saccharin, aspartame and sucralose.

爲了探究甜料對食用者的影響，Eran Segal和Eran Elinav對老鼠進行了實驗。前者是一名計算生物學家，後者是一名免疫學者。兩位研究員均在以色列雷霍沃特威茨曼科學研究學院工作。他們把糖精，阿斯巴甜和三氯蔗糖等人工甜料加進動物的飲用水中。

After 11 weeks, the animals showed problems with their metabolism. Unusually high levels of a type of sugar called glucose circulated in their blood after meals. This suggested the sweeteners impaired their bodies' ability to process glucose.

11周後，這些動物的新陳代謝開始出現問題。通常飯後他們血液裏會循環流淌着一種叫做種葡萄糖的糖類，這一現象說明了人工甜料已經損壞了他們自身加工處理葡萄糖的能力。