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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/rivers-lakes-loaded-with-artificial-sweeteners-researchers-say-1.2411398">http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/rivers-lakes-loaded-with-artificial-sweeteners-researchers-say-1.2411398</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">It may be lurking in your diet soda, your chewing gum and even in your favourite yogurt. Now scientists have found artificial sweeteners are also
coming out of your faucet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Sweeteners are used in thousands of food and beverages sold around the world, according to The Sugar Association. And on World Oceans Day, marked
every June 8, scientists are asking us to consider where sweeteners end up after they're ingested.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">According to recent research, scientists have found artificial sweeteners in bodies of water around the world, including Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Sugar substitutes -- such as Splenda and Sweet'N Low -- are designed to be eaten, but not absorbed by the body. Because our bodies cannot break
them down, sweeteners go straight through humans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">That's how consumers get the sweet taste without the weight gain often associated with sugar-laden foods.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Once the sweetener leaves the body, wastewater treatment plants face the same dilemma: studies have found they can't break down the complex chemical.
Most sweeteners, then, flow into oceans, lakes and rivers in practically the same form in which they were consumed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">It's a situation playing out in the water flowing through southwestern Ontario's Grand River, which empties into Lake Erie. Researchers from the
<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082706" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#006699;text-decoration:none">University of Waterloo and Environment Canada
</span></a>found the amount of sugar substitute in the water is equivalent to about 81,000 to 190,000 cans of artificially sweetened soda flowing through the 300-kilometre river each day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">The study tested for sucralose, cyclamate, saccharin and acesulfame. It also found three types of sweetener coming out of the faucets in Brantford.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Sweeteners could harm aquatic life</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">According to the Canadian study, the effect of artificial sweeteners in the water is largely unknown. But Amy Parente, an assistant professor
of biochemistry at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Penn., says scientists should be on alert.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Parente did her own study in Lake Erie looking for sucralose, the substitute used by Splenda. Her team also found the sweetener in the water.
But while other studies took samples from what came out of wastewater treatment plants, Parente tested water found at the lake's beaches, where the sweeteners had a chance to dilute.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">She and her team found 0.15 micrograms of the sweetener for every litre of water, which meant there could be up to 72 metric tons of sweetener
floating in the waters of Lake Erie.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Since Parente's study came out in 2012, Parente and her students have been looking at how sweetener affects a snail living in Lake Erie that forages
for food. As part of that work, one student found the presence of sweetener made the animals believe there was nutrition in the water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">The team believes the sweetener affected their foraging abilities, leaving them with fewer calories to be healthy and reproduce. And Parente thinks
this could be true for other foraging animals.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">"When people think about small animals and small organisms, they tend not to be concerned," Parente said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca.
But she added the impact has the potential for a domino effect.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Another study published by
<a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es504769c" target="_blank"><span style="color:#006699;text-decoration:none">Environmental Science and Technology
</span></a>also found large amounts of sucralose, saccharin, aspartame and acesulfame near wastewater treatment plants in New York State. The study suggested sweetener can harm a plant's ability to perform photosynthesis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">This could create less food for animals that depend on the plants, creating a ripple effect that could make its way back to humans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">The taste is not in the tap</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">For now, more research is needed before drawing any conclusions about sweeteners' impact on all aquatic life, said Environment Canada research
scientist, John Spoelstra, part of the team that tested the Grand River.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">And while research shows a large amount of sugar substitutes in our bodies of water, Spoelstra said consumers shouldn't expect their drinking
water to taste any sweeter.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">"Concentrations in the river are very small," Spoelstra told CTVNews.ca. "They're in the tens to hundreds of thousands of times lower than the
concentration that would be in a can of soda."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">As for aquatic life, scientists have had less than a decade to study the effect of the sweeteners, since research showing its concentration only
came out a few years ago, Spoelstra said. But work is underway by scientists around the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">The few studies that have come out shouldn't be ignored, Parente said, likening them to the canary in the coal mine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:14.25pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">"I feel that out of these small organisms are early warnings," she said. "We need to heed those warnings."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Laurie Tenace<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Environmental Specialist<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Waste Reduction Section<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Florida Department of Environmental Protection<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tallahassee, FL 32399-2400<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">850.245.8759<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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