Judy Hernandez, Misael, Aguilar Orellana, Yessica Giles, Jennifer Arroyo, Christine Perez, Esha Anand, & Dr. Nitika Parmar
Sweeteners can be either nutritive (providing calories such as table sugar) or nonnutritive (providing zero calories such as stevia). Artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, acesulfame, aspartame, neotame, and sucralose are found in zero-calorie sugar substitutes, while natural zero calorie sweeteners have also emerged in the market, such as Stevia, Monk-fruit, sugar alcohols (xylitol, erythritol) and allulose. Today, because of the increasing trend in diabetes, a large number of individuals are relying on these sweeteners for negating glucose in their diets. One area which is relatively unexplored is the impact of these sweeteners on the oral microbiome which refers to the microbial population in the mouth. The oral microbiome is subject to change depending on the diet and lifestyle of an individual and its metabolic footprint is thus dynamic in nature. Our research seeks to analyze the differences in the growth patterns, metabolic footprint, and chemical sensitivities of the human oral microbiome in response to exposure to eleven different zero calorie sweeteners. The experimental procedures involve collection of the microbial populations from the mouths of human subjects having diverse dietary inclinations (vegetarian, vegan, omnivores, pescatarians, etc.), culturing the bacteria in rich and synthetic media, monitoring the growth profiles using spectrophotometry, and conducting metabolic footprint assays using the BIOLOG Phenotype microarray platform. Our current results indicate that the oral bacteria respond differently to different sweeteners depending on the diet of the human subject. The most preferred sweeteners were sorbitol, stevia, maltitol and monkfruit but a few pools also showed an inclination to lactitol. Growth profiles indicated rapid adaption to these sweeteners, similar to that seen in glucose. The oral microbiome has been hypothesized to impact oral health and this project will be useful in determining the changes in the metabolism of the oral microflora in response to different sweeteners. With a shift in the population, the metabolic footprint is also likely to change, which can likely influence susceptibility to diseases. Considering the enormous and unregulated use of these sweeteners today, this study’s observations could have important implications for their continued consumption and may reflect a more cautionary utilization.