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Sweetener saccharin shows surprise power against antibiotic resistance
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- ninetyninenine 2y agoIsn’t saccharine toxic?
- jinwoo68 2y agoI think so. Seems also toxic to bacteria!
- boxed 2y agoThe dose makes the poison. It doesn't sound THAT toxic, but enough to be a bad idea for sweeteners. But I'd bet the antibiotic itself has more toxicity! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin
- SoftTalker 2y agoThere were some suspected links to cancer but they were found to not be a risk at normal intake levels.
- nottorp 2y agoSo is any prescription pill if you're not respecting the dosage the docs prescribed...
- ignoramous 2y agoIt is banned in India for Ice Creams & frozen Lollies / Ice Pops, but allowed within limit for general use (soda, bubble gums, packaged juice, etc). Health department officials said, "Saccharin is harmful to children especially those under 14 years. It affects bones badly. These ice candies are sold in rural areas and their sale picks up during summer" Some ice cream producers prefer to use saccharin as it is quite cheaper in comparison to sugar. To earn heavy profits during summer when the demand for ice candies goes up significantly, some of the ice cream producers use saccharin. Officials said that saccharin is more than 300 times sweeter than sucrose (sugar), the officials said. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/ice-cream-producer-gets-jail-term-for-using-saccharin-as-sweetener/articleshow/71284656.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/ice-cream-pr... / https://archive.vn/wRTE5 https://archive.vn/wRTE5
- teslabox 2y agoSaccharin was the first artificial sweetener, discovered in 1879. It was popular in the early 20th century, and is available today as Sweet'n'Low or "the pink packet" (generics). The chemical has an advocacy group: https://saccharin.org/ https://saccharin.org/ - the latest news is that Canadians can now use saccharin too (2016). Walmart and Amazon have boxes of bulk sweet'n'low for baking/etc. ~4 weeks ago I reposted a submission about Aspartame: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation (sciencedirect.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43313574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43313574 My comment tried to put saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose into context. Aspartame is not heat stable, so it's often combined with acesulfame-K. The diet soda industry standardized on aspartame in the 1980's because saccharin has a metallic aftertaste. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43313575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43313575 I think saccharin is probably the safest of all the artificial sweeteners. Stevia and monk fruit extracts (herbal sweeteners) are probably okay too, as long as you're not allergic to them. If you want to try saccharin-sweetened beverages, I've noticed that zero sugar tonic waters at my local grocery store (brand name and generic) use saccharin.
- Centigonal 2y agoOne important thing to mention about the history of saccharin is that it was the subject of a big scare in the 70s and 80s because rat studies showed it caused cancer. Later research revealed that the link between saccharin and cancer was much more tenuous in humans than originally suggested, and the sweetener is generally considered safe today.
- tasty_freeze 2y agoWhen I was a kid in the 70s, our pantry had a bottle of saccharine tablets that my folks would use to sweeten their coffee. They were tiny, not big tablets, more like round little pills. They had an uncanny resemblance to a popular breath mint product. A common prank was to put some saccharine pills in one of those mint dispensers, walk up to a sibling and asked if they wanted one while putting a real mint in your mouth. They'd take one of the fake mints, put it in their mouth, and half a second later curse you as they ran to the sink to spit it out.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoHate the taste of the stuff, but glad to hear this. Wonder if some megacorp will try to patent some formulation of it.
- Obscurity4340 2y agoSaccharin adderallide
- jader201 2y agoThese days, about the only liquid you can consume without controversy is water. Some say coffee is good for you (in moderation), some say it's bad for you. Some say certain alcoholic drinks are good for you (in moderation), some say no amount of alcohol is good. Some say some artificial sweeteners have benefits, some say all of them are toxic. Some think fruit juices are good for you, because fruit. Some (most) say they're bad for you. Some say fruit smoothies are good for you, because the fiber content outweighs the downside of fructose/natural sugars. But some say all fruit sugar is bad for you. The only thing that we seem to agree on, is that any sort of beverage containing sucrose is bad for you. But maybe I missed some thread where sucrose in moderation actually has health benefits. I guess I'll stick to drinking water. But I'm sure there's a reason why that's bad for me.
- butlike 2y agoIn worrying about it all you miss all the earthly delights AND you STILL don't live forever
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- anonzzzies 2y agoPeople worry about where the drinking water is from and how it's transported etc as well. Whatever you do, you will die soon-ish. I prefer to enjoy the journey.
- mentalgear 2y agoHaha, you made me chuckle. But to the facts: the article and application is about directly applying it to the wound or antibiotics directly. No one is advocating for it to be part of a healthy diet.
- ender341341 2y ago> Some say certain alcoholic drinks are good for you (in moderation), some say no amount of alcohol is good. From what I've read it seems likely that any amount of alcohol is bad for you, most of the studies that show moderate as good for you make the mistake of only have 'sober', 'moderate' & 'heavy' drinking, but if you look at the 'sober' folks there's a heavy mix of "I don't drink because I'm in recovery" or other health issues, so if you instead of 'sober by choice', 'sober by recovery/health issues', 'moderate' & 'heavy drinker' the benefit of moderation reverses to being worse than 'sober by choice'. Almost any "this bad for you thing is actually good for you in moderation" basically seem to come down to: People who can do common addictive things in moderation tend to also be good at moderating other bad factors too.
- hinkley 2y agoWell at least it’s not in vitro. Everything kills bacteria in a Petri dish. But it is topical. So it may do a treat for MRSA but not for resistant pneumonia.
- pshirshov 2y agoThere is a vaccine, which works against SA (including MRSA of course) as both a prevention and a cure: https://www.eapteka.ru/goods/id123804/ https://www.eapteka.ru/goods/id123804/ The old and mostly unknown legacy of the Soviet medicine. $50 per 20 doses.
- pfdietz 2y agoThe paper describe the effect at 1.4% saccharine in solution. The oral LD50 in mice is 17 g/kg. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Saccharin#section=Acute-Effects https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Saccharin#section=... Maybe ok for topical application?
- arijo 2y agoAll sweeteners are considered harmful. Please watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkyv1o8Xp_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkyv1o8Xp_M
- profsummergig 2y agoThe gut biome thing. There have been murmurs on the conspiracy internet about how artificial sweeteners may have been responsible for making gut biomes less effective. This seems related. The gut biome refers to bacteria in the gut.
- gyudin 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised. Living in US more and more of my immigrant friends discover severe food sensitivities that they've never experienced before.
- Beijinger 2y agohttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweete...
- stephenitis 2y agoThere are a lot of bacteria that live in a dirt and our natural biome that also reduce to antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria thus making antibiotics a more effective. This general weakness of the bacterial wall is something to be wary of given they didn’t study its effect on a wider range of important bacteria. Throwing a lot of anything in your gut that can cause an imbalance, ir serious dybosis is a good reason to treat your stomach like a little fermenting aquarium whose bacteria and skin cells cycle every 3-5 days.
- pshirshov 2y ago> Saccharin breaks the walls of bacterial pathogens, causing them to distort and eventually burst, killing the bacteri Sugar, salt, kerosene and, for example, ethanol, do the same. What is special about saccharin?
- smt88 2y agoYou can't put the other things you've listed on a wound in a hospital without some, uh... unpleasantness.
- pshirshov 2y agoSure thing you can put sugar or, for example, colloidal silver (an awesome option!).
- masfuerte 2y agoI don't fancy kerosene much. Sugar works very well [1]. Salt and ethanol are very effective in mouthwashes, though ethanol is carcinogenic. I stick to the salt. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180328-how-sugar-could-help-heal-wounds https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180328-how-sugar-could-...
- smt88 2y agoSalt is painful and I believe the risk with sugar is that it can be metabolized by bacteria or fungi, so the remnants of it can make conditions better for microbes (although I haven't googled to confirm this)
- tickerticker 2y agoIf taken orally, how does the saccharin distinguish between good and bad bacteria when bursting bacteria cell walls?
- kokada 2y agoI don't think most antibiotics distinguish between good and bad bacteria, you just kill the majority of them and wait until they reproduce themselves again (and hopefully only the good bacterias).
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- dingdingdang 2y agoBut surely.. we also got a decent amount of research showing how Saccharin causes increased biofilm formation: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8156656/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8156656/ Guess it's all about the usage model..!!