The Sucralose News: Scaremongering Or Serious?
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What’s the news on sucralose?
These past days the press has been abuzz with frightening tales:
- This Common Artificial Sweetener Can Break Down DNA, Scientists Warn
- Sucralose Damages DNA, Linked to Leaky Gut
- Chemical found in common sweetener damages DNA
- Chemical found in widely used sweetener breaks up DNA
- Chemical from Splenda breaks up DNA
How true and/or serious is this?
Firstly, let’s manage expectations. Pineapple juice also breaks down DNA, but is not generally considered a health risk. So let’s keep that in mind, while we look into the science.
Is sucralose as scary as pineapple juice, or is it something actually dangerous?
The new study (that sparked off these headlines)
The much-referenced study is publicly available to read in full—here it is:
You may notice that this doesn’t have quite the snappy punchiness of some of the headlines, but let’s break this down, if you’ll pardon the turn of phrase:
- Toxicological: pertaining to whether or not it has toxic qualities
- Pharmacokinetic: the science of asking, of chemicals in bodies, “where did it come from; where did it go; what could it do there; what can we know?” ← try not to read it to the tune of “Cotton-eye Joe”
- Sucralose-6-acetate: an impurity that can be found in sucralose. For perspective, the study found that the sucralose in Splenda contained “up to” 0.67% sucralose-6-acetate.
- Sucralose: a modified form of sucrose, that makes it hundreds of times sweeter, and non-caloric because the body cannot break it down so it’s treated as a dietary fiber and just passes through
- In vitro: things are happening in petri dishes, not in animals (human or otherwise), which would be called “in vivo”
- Screening assays: “we set up a very closed-parameters chemical test, to see what happens when we add this to this” ⇽ oversimplification, but this is the basic format of a screening assay—not to be mistaken for a “screaming essay”, which is what happens when a student’s final thesis is due tomorrow
Great, now we understand the title, but what about the study?
Researchers looked primarily at the effects of sucralose-6-acetate and sucralose (together and separately) on epithelial cells (these are very simple cells that are easy to study; conveniently, they are also most of what makes up our intestinal walls). For this, they used a fancy way of replicating human intestinal walls, that’s actually quite fascinating but beyond the scope of today’s newsletter. Suffice it to say: it’s quite good, and/but has its limitations too. They also looked at some in vivo rat studies.
What they found was…
Based on samples from the rat feces (somehow this didn’t make it into the headlines), it appears that sucralose may be acetylated in the intestines. What that means is that we, if we are like the rats (definitely not a given, but a reasonable hypothesis), might convert up to 10% of sucralose into sucralose-6-acetate inside us. Iff we do, the next part of the findings become more serious.
Based on the in vitro simulations, both sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate reduced intestinal barrier integrity at least a little, but sucralose-6-acetate was the kicker when it came to most of the effects—at least, so we (reasonably!) suppose.
Basically, there’s a lot of supposition going on here but the suppositions are reasonable. That’s how science works; there’s usually little we can know for sure from a single study; it’s when more studies roll in that we start to get a more complete picture.
What was sucralose-6-acetate found to do? It increased the expression of genes associated with inflammation, oxidative stress, and cancer (granted those three things generally go together). So that’s a “this probably has this end result” supposition.
More concretely, and which most of the headlines latched onto, it was found (in vitro) to induce cytogenic damage, specifically, of the clastogenic variety (produces DNA strand breaks—so this is different than pineapple’s bromelain and DNA-helicase’s relatively harmless unzipping of genes).
The dose makes the poison
So, how much is too much and is that 0.67% something to worry about?
- Remembering the rat study, it may be more like 10% once our intestines have done their thing. Iff we’re like rats.
- But, even if it’s only 0.67%, this will still be above the “threshold of toxicological concern for genotoxicity”, of 0.15µg/person/day.
- On the other hand, the fact that these were in vitro studies is a serious limitation.
- Sometimes something is very dangerous in vitro, because it’s being put directly onto cells, whereas in vivo we may have mechanisms for dealing with that.
We won’t know for sure until we get in vivo studies in human subjects, and that may not happen any time soon, if ever, depending on the technical limitations and ethical considerations that sometimes preclude doing certain studies in humans.
Bottom line:
- The headlines are written to be scary, but aren’t wrong; their claims are fundamentally true
- What that means for us as actual humans may not be the same, however; we don’t know yet
- For now, it is probably reasonable to avoid sucralose just in case
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5 Health Truths Every Woman Over 50 Should Know
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How many were you aware of?
What matters the most, healthwise
Dr. Ruth Machin’s five points to know about:
- There’s less wiggle room now when it comes to diet: declining estrogen promotes insulin resistance, increases visceral fat, contributes to muscle loss, and worsens blood lipid profiles, making it more important to prioritize protein, fiber, and unsaturated fats while limiting refined carbohydrates and saturated fats.
- Muscle becomes your internal health insurance policy: this is because maintaining and building muscle supports metabolism, improves insulin sensitivity, strengthens bones and joints, enhances balance, and helps preserve independence later in life. The good thing is that building muscle doesn’t require a gym, heavy weights, or lengthy workouts because even lighter resistance training can produce benefits when performed consistently and progressively.
- Downtime nevertheless becomes more important: yes, we must exercise, but also, chronic stress, inadequate sleep, and insufficient recovery can undermine health and fitness progress, while deep sleep plays a key role in muscle repair and adaptation. Also, reduced estrogen negatively affects tendons and ligaments, making gradual progression and adequate recovery especially important when increasing exercise.
- Quick fixes were never good, but now they become more dangerous: this is because crash diets can accelerate muscle loss, increase hunger, slow resting metabolism through metabolic adaptation, and contribute to weight regain and weight cycling. In contrast, sustainable habits and gradual progress are much more beneficial. On which note…
- Health is a marathon, not a sprint: Dr. Machin encourages us to focus on the mobility, energy, and independence that we want at ages 75 or 85 rather than on results over the next few months.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Mobility For Now & For Later: Train For The Marathon That Is Your Life!
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Gut Diversity vs Aging
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…and other items from this week’s health news:
How A Diverse Gut Microbiome Can Make You Younger
It’s well-known (to regular 10almonds readers, at the very least) that gut microbiome diversity is broadly a very good thing for health. What’s good for the gut is good for the heart, and what’s good for the heart is good for the brain, and also the gut is in many ways a hugely influential factor in our immune system, which includes not just when it comes to fighting pathogens, but also when it comes to healthy immune regulation, i.e. against immune dysfunction and chronic inflammation, which latter is bad for pretty much everything.
However, a new study has found a link between gut health and aging; specifically, that the aging microbiome produces fewer metabolites that are needed for good health, resulting in a compounding effect of aging.
Most interestingly, however, this relation has found to be causal the other way around, that is to say, it’s not just “when older, the gut doesn’t work so well”, but rather, “when given a better gut microbiome, effects of aging are reversed”.
Caveat: this was a mouse study and it wasn’t all aspects of aging, but it was enough aspects of aging to be very worthy of note, and there’s no reason the same principles shouldn’t apply in humans:
Read in full: Metabolic modeling reveals aging microbiome produces fewer vital substances
Related: Stop Sabotaging Your Gut
Maybe you can drink some calories, after all (if you do this with them)
“Don’t drink your calories” is generally good advice; liquids are typically absorbed much more quickly than solids (increasing total caloric consumption, as well as the initial shock to the metabolism), and most sugary drinks (which absolutely includes pure fruit juice, by the way, as it has been stripped of fiber in the juicing process) produce an impressive spike in blood sugars, and thus insulin levels (both are bad things to spike).
However, smoothies do better than juices, due to still having fiber in them. And, research has found, smoothies with seeds in flatten the blood sugar curve even more, likely due to the combination of fiber and fats:
Read in full: Smoothies with seeds may improve glycemic control, study shows
Related: 3 Day Juice Fasting? Not So Fast! ← why you should absolutely not expect the same results from juices
Where there’s smoke, there’s… An increase in mental health conditions?
Wildfires have been raging in some parts of the US lately, and needless to say, these aren’t great for the health. As well as the initial most obvious risks, there are a lot of follow-up risks (including weakened immune systems as well as increased presence of pathogens in the air; people think of smoke as purifying, but it’s not, it’s mostly just hot air bringing germs with it), and, by the numbers, a large increase in hospital visits for mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, and mood disorders:
Read in full: Exposure to wildfire smoke linked to worsening mental health conditions
Related: The Dangers Of Fires, Floods, & Having Your Hair Washed
Take care!
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Sleep Tracking, For Five Million Nights
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5 Sleep Phenotypes, By Actual Science
You probably know people can be broadly divided into “early birds” and “night owls”:
Early Bird Or Night Owl? Genes vs Environment
…and then the term “hummingbird” gets used for a person who flits between the two.
That’s three animals so far. If you read a book we reviewed recently, specifically this one:
The Power of When – by Dr. Michael Breus
…then you may have used the guide within to self-diagnose your circadian rhythm type (chronotype) according to Dr. Breus’s system, which divides people into bears, lions, wolves, and dolphins.
That’s another four animals. If you have a FitBit, it can “diagnose” you with being those and/or a menagerie of others, such as giraffe, hedgehog, parrot, and tortoise:
How Fitbit Developed the Sleep Profile Experience (Part 2 – Sleep Animals)
Five million nights
A team of researchers recently took a step away from this veritable zoo of 11 different animals and counting, and used a sophisticated modelling system to create a spatial-temporal map of people’s sleep habits, and this map created five main “islands” that people’s sleep habits could settle on, or sometimes move from island to island.
Those “five million nights” by the way? It was actually 5,095,798 nights! You might notice that would take from the 2020s to the 15970s to complete, so this was rather a matter of monitoring 33,152 individuals between January and October of the same year. Between them, they got those 5,095,798 nights of sleep (or in some cases, nights of little or no sleep, but still, they were there for the nights).
The five main phenotypes that the researchers found were:
- What we think of as “normal” sleep. In this phenotype, people get about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for at least six days in a row.
- As above for half the nights, but they only sleep for short periods of time in bouts of less than three hours the other half.
- As per normal sleep, but with one interrupted night per week, consisting of a 5 hour sleep period and then broken sleep for a few more hours.
- As per normal sleep generally, but with occasional nights in which long bouts of sleep are separated by a mid-sleep waking.
- Sleeping for very short periods of time every night. This phenotype was the rarest the researchers found, and represents extremely disrupted sleep.
As you might suspect, phenotype 1 is healthier than phenotype 5. But that’s not hugely informational, as the correlation between getting good sleep and having good health is well-established. So, what did the study teach us?
❝We found that little changes in sleep quality helped us identify health risks. Those little changes wouldn’t show up on an average night, or on a questionnaire, so it really shows how wearables help us detect risks that would otherwise be missed.❞
More specifically,
❝We found that the little differences in how sleep disruptions occur can tell us a lot. Even if these instances are rare, their frequency is also telling. So it’s not just whether you sleep well or not – it’s the patterns of sleep over time where the key info hides❞
…and, which gets to the absolute point,
❝If you imagine there’s a landscape of sleep types, then it’s less about where you tend to live on that landscape, and more about how often you leave that area❞
In other words: if your sleep pattern is not ideal, that’s one thing and it’d probably be good to address it, by improving your sleep. However, if your sleep pattern changes phenotype without an obvious known reason why, this may be considered an alarm bell warning of something else that needs addressing, which may be an underlying illness or condition—meaning it can be worthwhile being a little extra vigilant when it comes to regular health screenings, in case something new has appeared.
Want to read more?
You can read the paper in full here:
Five million nights: temporal dynamics in human sleep phenotypes
Take care!
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PTSD, But, Well…. Complex.
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PTSD is typically associated with military veterans, for example, or sexual assault survivors. There was a clear, indisputable, Bad Thing™ that was experienced, and it left a psychological scar. When something happens to remind us of that—say, there are fireworks, or somebody touches us a certain way—it’ll trigger an immediate strong response of some kind.
These days the word “triggered” has been popularly misappropriated to mean any adverse emotional reaction, often to something trivial.
But, not all trauma is so clear. If PTSD refers to the result of that one time you were smashed with a sledgehammer, C-PTSD (Complex PTSD) refers to the result of having been hit with a rolled-up newspaper every few days for fifteen years, say.
This might have been…
- childhood emotional neglect
- a parent with a hair-trigger temper
- bullying at school
- extended financial hardship as a young adult
- “just” being told or shown all too often that your best was never good enough
- the persistent threat (real or imagined) of doom of some kind
- the often-reinforced idea that you might lose everything at any moment
If you’re reading this list and thinking “that’s just life though”, you might be in the estimated 1 in 5 people with (often undiagnosed) C-PTSD.
How About You? Take The (5mins) Test Here
Now, we at 10almonds are not doctors or therapists and even if we were, we certainly wouldn’t try to diagnose from afar. But, even if there’s only a partial match, sometimes the same advice can help.
So what are the symptoms of C-PTSD?
- A feeling that nothing is safe; we might suddenly lose what we have gained
- Difficulty relaxing, which also counterintuitively often includes an aversion to exercise for reasons that don’t really add up, or an aversion to being touched.
- Trouble sleeping, born of nagging sense that to sleep is to be vulnerable to attack, and/or lazy, and/or negligent of our duties
- Poor self-image, about our body and/or about ourself as a person.
- We’re often drawn to highly unavailable people—or we are the highly unavailable person to which our complementary C-PTSD sufferers are attracted.
- We are prone to feelings of rage. Whether we keep a calm lid on it or lose our temper, we know it’s there. We’re angry at the world and at ourselves.
- We are not quick to trust—we may go through the motions of showing trust, but we’re already half-expecting that trust to have been misplaced.
- “Hell is other people” has become such a rule of life that we may tend to cloister ourselves away from company.
- We may try to order our environment around us as a matter of safety, and be easily perturbed by sudden changes being imposed on us, even if ostensibly quite minor or harmless.
- In a bid to try to find safety, we may throw ourselves into work—whatever that is for us. It could be literally our job, or passion projects, or our family, or community, and in and of itself that’s great! But the motivation is more of an attempt to distract ourselves from The Horrors™.
“Alright, I scored more of those than I care to admit. What now?”
A lot of the answer lies in first acknowledging to yourself what happened, to make you feel the way you do now. If you, for example, have an abject hatred of Christmas, what were your childhood Christmases like? If you fear losing money that you’ve accumulated, what underpins that fear? It could be something that directly happened to you, but it also could just be repeated messages you received from your parents, for example.
It could even be that you had superficially an idyllic perfect childhood. Health, wealth, security, a loving family… and simply a chemical imbalance in your brain made it a special kind of Hell for you that nobody understood, and perhaps you didn’t either.
Unfortunately, a difficult task now lies ahead: giving love, understanding, compassion, and reassurance to the person for whom you may have the most contempt in the world: yourself.
If you’d like some help with that, here are some resources:
ComplexTrauma.org (a lot of very good free resources, with no need for interaction)
CPTSD Foundation (mostly paid courses and the like)
Some final words about healing…
- You are in fact amazing,
- You can do it, and
- You deserve it.
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How Primary Care Is Being Disrupted: A Video Primer
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How patients are seeing their doctor is changing, and that could shape access to and quality of care for decades to come.
More than 100 million Americans don’t have regular access to primary care, a number that has nearly doubled since 2014. Yet demand for primary care is up, spurred partly by record enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans. Under pressure from increased demand, consolidation, and changing patient expectations, the model of care no longer means visiting the same doctor for decades.
KFF Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby breaks down what is happening — and what it means for patients.
More From This Investigation
Primary Care Disrupted
Known as the “front door” to the health system, primary care is changing. Under pressure from increased demand, consolidation, and changing patient expectations, the model of care no longer means visiting the same doctor for decades. KFF Health News looks at what this means for patients.
Credits
Hannah Norman Video producer and animator Oona Tempest Illustrator and creative director KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
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How to Lose That Last 5–10 lbs Of Stubborn Fat
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Losing the last 5–10 pounds is often much harder and slower than people expect. As you get closer to your goal, progress tends to stall, and the temptation to push harder—by slashing calories or overtraining—can actually backfire. This approach often leads to burnout, metabolic disruption, and ultimately, regaining the weight.
So, what to do instead?
Stay on track, actively
There are five key things to understand, plan for, and keep in mind:
- Expect progress to take longer than you’d like—possibly double or triple the time you expect. This mindset helps you stay motivated when results come slower. Focus on what you can control: your daily habits. Unrealistic expectations lead to frustration and quitting, while realistic ones keep you steady and encouraged.
- Approach your goal with a structured workout and nutrition strategy, not by winging it. Just like you wouldn’t drive somewhere new without directions, you shouldn’t try to lose weight without a roadmap. A plan gives you focus, consistency, and the ability to track what’s working so you can make effective adjustments.
- Don’t rely solely on the scale. Look for other signs of progress—better sleep, stronger workouts, improved energy, looser clothing. These are all indicators that you’re on the right path. By setting complementary goals and tracking non-scale wins, you stay motivated and better recognize your progress.
- Success comes from repeating the basic daily habits—tracking macros, consistent meals, regular workouts, and solid routines. These may feel dull, but they’re what truly move the needle. Instead of seeing them as chores, recognize them as choices that bring you closer to your goal and celebrate your consistency.
- There will be discomfort and sacrifice on the way to your goal. It’s not always going to be fun or feel easy, but doing what needs to be done—especially when it’s hard—builds strength and confidence (and is great to look back on, afterwards!).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Is A Visible Six-Pack Obtainable Regardless Of Genetic Predisposition?
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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