Drinks such as Diet Coke and Red Bull that contain artificial sweeteners could increase your risk of developing cancer, scientists have warned.
The fizzy drinks are made with sucralose, which you may recognise as popular sweetener brand name Splenda, that breaks up DNA when it's digested.
This happens when sucralose reaches the gut and releases a chemical called sucralose-6-acetate, which scientists say "effectively broke up DNA in cells that were exposed to the chemical".
The Mirror reports that a series of test tube experiments using human blood led to the researchers making this discovery.
They also exposed human gut tissues to sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate in a number of different tests and found that both chemicals caused a "leaky gut" - meaning waste products usually flushed through our systems leak into the bloodstream.
Professor Susan Schiffman, of the North Carolina State University, explained: "Basically, they make the wall of the gut more permeable. The chemicals damage the ‘tight junctions,’ or interfaces, where cells in the gut wall connect to each other.
“A leaky gut is problematic, because it means that things that would normally be flushed out of the body in faeces are instead leaking out of the gut and being absorbed into the bloodstream.”
The study also found sucralose-6-acetate had inflammation and carcinogenic effects.
Prof Schiffman added: "We found that gut cells exposed to sucralose-6-acetate had increased activity in genes related to oxidative stress, inflammation and carcinogenicity."
A carcinogen is a substance or organism that is capable of causing cancer.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) does consider artificial sweeteners safe while the UK governments and NHS outline safe levels of consumption online, according to the NHS.
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