Choi Won-suk is a photojournalist at The Korea Times. Before joining the newspaper, he also worked as a photojournalist with AFP and St. Joseph News-Press in Missouri. He spent 13 years in the United States, graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree (Cum Laude) from the University of Missouri - Columbia and a Master of Arts in Photography from Ohio University - Athens. Over the past 11 years, Choi covered various news events such as presidential elections, the 2019 North Korea-United States Hanoi Summit and 2022 Qatar World Cup. But above all, Choi believes in local journalism and finds a lot of joy telling life stories of ordinary citizens in small neighborhoods.
Artificial sweeteners may be toxic to digestive gut microbes
New studies find that artificial sweeteners may be toxic to gut microbiome.
Science Daily reports that researchers from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and Nanyang Technological Institute in Singapore modified E. coli to light up when exposed to toxins, using it as a sensing model representative of the complex gut microbial system.
Exposure to six types of popular artificial sweeteners, which include aspartame and sucralose among others, had a toxic, stressing effect that made it difficult for the bacteria to grow and reproduce.
A separate study carried out in Australia looked at 29 healthy adults and randomly administered the capsule equivalent of drinking 1.5 liters of diet soda a day to 14 of the participants. The other 15 were given a placebo, according to a report in Diabetologia.
After two weeks, the amount of good bacteria in the 14 subjects' gut had decreased, while gut pathogens had increased — potentially affecting the body's ability to regulate glucose.
But while both studies' findings are compelling, experts say they are insufficient to establish causality. It's also it's difficult to assess what exactly these gut marker changes mean to overall health. (Next Animation via Reuters)