The safety and quality of food
Geoffrey P. Webb in Nutrition, 2019
Some additives are essential as processing aids or otherwise necessary for the manufacture of a considerable number of supermarket foods. Some of these foods are considered to be “healthy foods” and seen as important in helping consumers to comply with current nutrition education guidelines. Emulsifiers and stabilisers are essential for the production of many “reduced-fat” products like low fat spread and polyunsaturated margarine. Anti-caking agents are needed for the manufacture of many powders that are to be instantly rehydrated like coffee whitener. Artificial sweeteners or sugar replacers are necessary for the production of many “low calorie” and “reduced sugar” foods and drinks. The new UK sugar tax is effectively encouraging producers to replace sugar with calorie-free sweeteners.
Medical Nutrition Therapy for Patients with Type-2 Diabetes
Jeffrey I. Mechanick, Elise M. Brett in Nutritional Strategies for the Diabetic & Prediabetic Patient, 2006
Fructose is associated with a lower postprandial rise in blood sugar than sucrose, but may affect lipids adversely [101–103]. Sugar alcohols produce lower glycemic responses compared to sucrose, fructose, and glucose, but can cause diarrhea [27]. Saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose are the four Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved nonnutritive artificial sweeteners [104]. Aspartame (NutraSweet®) consists of two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) and is 180 times as sweet as sucrose. It cannot be used in baking or cooking as it is heat-labile. Saccharin is a nonnutritive sweetener which is still being used despite an FDA warning about its potential for bladder carcinogenicity with long-term use [103]. Sucralose (Splenda®) is 600 times sweeter than sucrose and is heat-stable for cooking and baking. The FDA approved its use in 1998 and concluded that this sweetener did not pose carcinogenic, reproductive, or neurological risk to humans [104].
Chemosensation
Emily Crews Splane, Neil E. Rowland, Anaya Mitra in Psychology of Eating, 2019
The principal GPCRs involved in sweet taste are members 2 and 3 of taste receptor type 1, abbreviated T1R2 and T1R3. These each have a particularly long string of amino acids at the free (non-looping) domain outside the cell. T1R2 and T1R3 aggregate together in the membrane of the taste cell to form a heterodimer (two different or hetero entities). These long ends form what is called a venus flytrap module that essentially snares a variety of molecular types, and all of these give rise to a sweet taste. These include sucrose, fructose, and artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and stevia. In this way, only two receptor types can be activated by a wide range of tastants. For completeness, there may be other sweet transduction mechanisms, but we will not discuss those in this text (see Roper & Chaudhari, 2017).
Maternal consumption of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy is associated with infant gut microbiota and metabolic modifications and increased infant body mass index
Published in Gut Microbes, 2021
Isabelle Laforest-Lapointe, Allan B. Becker, Piushkumar J. Mandhane, Stuart E. Turvey, Theo J. Moraes, Malcolm R. Sears, Padmaja Subbarao, Laura K. Sycuro, Meghan B. Azad, Marie-Claire Arrieta
Common low-calorie sweeteners include synthetic artificial sweeteners (e.g. non-acesulfame-potassium, aspartame, advantame, neotame), sugar alcohols (e.g. erythritol, xylitol), and plant-based sweeteners (e.g. sucralose, thaumatin, monk fruit).25 The effects of artificial sweeteners on the gut microbiome are diverse, including impacts on composition and function (see Suez et al.26 for a synthesis). Suez et al.27 also demonstrated that artificial sweetener consumption in adult mice directly impacts gut microbiome composition and function, leading to an increase in host glucose intolerance. More recently, Stichelen et al.24 addressed gestational exposure to artificial sweeteners, finding changes in bacterial metabolites and a decrease in Akkermansia municiphila in the pups’ gut microbiome. However, the consequences of maternal artificial sweetener consumption during pregnancy on the infant gut microbiota have not been reported in humans.
A structure-based approach towards the identification of novel antichagasic compounds: Trypanosoma cruzi carbonic anhydrase inhibitors
Published in Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry, 2020
Manuel A. Llanos, María L. Sbaraglini, María L. Villalba, María D. Ruiz, Carolina Carrillo, Catalina Alba Soto, Alan Talevi, Andrea Angeli, Seppo Parkkila, Claudiu T. Supuran, Luciana Gavernet
The docking calculations were fully validated through a test set of compounds with reported activity against TcCA, which led us to find a structural model with the best scoring power. By the application of the model in a virtual screening campaign we identified sulphamides with high potency and selectivity against the ubiquitous human CAII isoform. Additionally, the model selected two commercial and widely used artificial sweeteners with abundant toxicological data available. They share the sulphamate function, a bioisosteric partner of sulphamide as zinc-binding function. The assays in parasites identified sodium cyclamate as the most promising structure in terms of trypanocidal activity, reducing trypomastigote viability by 48% at 20 µM. Further molecular modelling and SAR studies will be performed in future investigations, to achieve a deeper knowledge about the molecular determinants of the potency and selectivity against TcCA.
Biosensors for the detection of mycotoxins
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2022
Akansha Shrivastava, Rakesh Kumar Sharma
The presence of E. coli in vegetables and other foodstuff is considered as a bio-indicator of fecal contamination in food. The high-tech biosensor methods for the detection and quantification of pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus have been developed (Rubab et al. 2018). Besides these pathogenic microbial contaminations, synthetic sweeteners are also being extensively used today, which are causing undesirable diseases including cardiovascular diseases, dental caries, obesity, and type-II diabetes. Artificial sweeteners are addictive and persuade consumers to eat more high-energy food, inadvertently causing weight gain. Thus, it is important to detect and quantify such additives (Bahadir and Sezgintürk 2015). Taste epithelium biosensors have been developed, which delivered sparse signals with positive waveforms in the presence of glucose, while sucrose continued signals with negative spikes. For on-site determination of food allergens in a complex sample, sensitive and economic microfluidic biosensors have been developed (Weng et al. 2016). Nanomaterials are widely applied for further enhancement in allergen detection for their specificity, sensitivity, speediness, lower cost, and on-site detection ability (S. Neethirajan et al. 2018). A paper-based magnetic nanoparticle–peptide probe biosensor for microbial pathogen detection for E. coli O157:H7 proteases in complex food matrices effectively detected the pathogens with a LOD 12 CFU/mL in broth and 30–300 CFU/mL in food material, respectively (Suaifan et al. 2017).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Aspartame
- Chemical Synthesis
- Extract
- Food Energy
- Saccharin
- Sucralose
- Sweetness
- Food Additive
- Sugar
- Siraitia Grosvenorii