Previous studies on artificial sweeteners and the human microbiome showed little to no effect, possibly due to shorter duration or measurement of only specific bacteria.

“Saccharin is not the most typical artificial sweetener that's used, the most typical artificial sweeteners that are used are things like aspartame, so-called NutraSweet or Sucralose, or these days Stevia, there's monk fruits, to my knowledge and please correct me if anyone knows of any studies, to my knowledge, the negative effects of these artificial sweeteners on the gut microbiome were restricted to saccharin. Now there is enough chemical similarity between saccharin and some of the other ones that I mentioned, but not all of them. For instance, Stevia, monk fruit are distinct in their chemical makeup so that they probably don't have if they have any, have lower effects, negative effects on the gut microbiome, but it should still be tested.”

“A paper published in "Nature" a few years back showing that particular artificial sweeteners can disrupt the gut microbiome, and have deleterious health effects. That result, I think, stands, although, there are some results that may not agree with that, depending on whether or not the artificial sweetener is saccharin, or sucralose, or aspartame, or stevia.”

“There is some evidence that I know we're both aware of, they've been publishing quite reputable journals, showing that they can disrupt the gut microbiome in certain cases in particular saccharin, the one that basically nobody uses anymore.”

“And at least by my exploration, I couldn't find any data specifically related to the sweetener aspartame. So right now it's somewhat controversial”

“I'm not aware of any studies in humans that show the equivalent effect. And I'm not aware of any studies in humans that show the equivalent effect for things like plant-based, low-calorie sweeteners, things like Stevia, monk fruit, and things of that sort.”

“The first two that came out showed pretty much no effect, but they were a little bit shorter in duration.”

“I became very interested in artificial sweeteners because of the animal data pointing to the idea that they may disrupt the gut microbiome, and then disrupt the gut microbiome, as you pointed out, is a very broad statement. We don't really know the percentage of lactobacillus, exobacilius, or whatever ilius in there-- they all seem to end in ilius-- is ideal. And in fact, a lot of these companies that are having people send in their stool samples for analysis of the microbiome. I mean, take note, we don't really know what a healthy microbiome looks like, but we know what an unhealthy microbiome might look like. And it's one that doesn't have a lot of diversity in there.”

“and only for sucalo so Stevia no change there was another there was another sweetener that I think had a change it might have been sacran sacran and sucrose are the ones that seem to always show”

“however there are a few with particular sweeteners like sucrose that do show an effect now there was one that got a lot of play and you and I actually talked about this I think we actually talked on the phone about this and it was an interesting study I thought it was well done but I want to be careful about how overgeneralized it was”

“most of the research studies in humans where they use reasonable doses don't really show much effect on the gut microbiome”

“To my knowledge, the negative effects of artificial sweeteners on the gut microbiome were restricted to saccharin.”

“the area where I still think we are most interested in understanding things is what is the impact of these things on the on the on the gut um and how much how foreign are these things to the bacteria in our gut um and are they being provided in a high enough quantity to even materially impact the guts you know there's some data uh some animal studies that suggest that this is a big issue”

“most the studies show no effect but sucrose in particular does appear to have an impact on the gut microbiome”