Maternal Sweeteners Intake Modulates Gut Microbiota and Exacerbates Learning and Memory Processes in Adult Male Offspring

Abstract

Background: There is increasing evidence that gut microbiota in offspring is derived in part from maternal environment such as diet. Thus, sweeteners intake including caloric or non-caloric during perinatal period can induce gut dysbiosis and program the offspring to develop cognitive problems later in life.Objective: To determine the effect of maternal high-sweeteners intake during gestation and lactation on gut microbiota shifts in adult male offspring rats and the impact on cognitive dysfunction.Methods: Thirty-four male pups from dams fed standard diet (Control-C, n = 10), high-sucrose diet (HS-C, n = 11), high-honey diet (Ho-C, n = 8), and high-stevia diet (HSt-C, n = 5) were fed standard diet after weaning, and body weight and food intake were recorded once a week for 26 weeks. Learning and memory tests were performed at week 23 of life using the Barnes maze. Fecal samples from the breastfeeding and adulthood periods were collected and analyzed by sequencing the 16S rRNA V3-V4 region of gut microbiota.Results: Maternal high-sucrose and stevia diets programmed the male offspring, and changes in microbial diversity by Shannon index were observed after weaning (p < 0.01). Furthermore, maternal high-stevia diet programming lasted into adulthood. The increase of Firmicutes abundance and the decrease in phylum Bacteroidetes were significant in HS-C and HSt-C groups. This led to an increase in the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes index, although only in HS-C group was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Of note, the downstream gram-negative Bacteroidales and the upregulation of the gram-positive Clostridiales abundance contribute to cognitive dysfunction.Conclusion: These results suggest that dams fed a high-sucrose and stevia diets during gestation and lactation favor a deficient memory performance in adult male offspring rats through shifts gut microbiota diversity and relative abundance at several taxa.

Gut microbiota response to sucralose or rebaudioside A in rats under two dietary conditions

“…Our ndings showed slight modi cations in gut microbiota composition after NNS exposure, especially in the interaction between HFD and sucralose supplementation. Modi cations in gut microbiota without alterations in glycemic or energy metabolism after natural or arti cial NNS exposure were reported in previous studies in healthy or with obesity-induced animals [12,13,43]. The lack of pronounced NNS effects on gut microbiota in our study differs from previous research using model animals which have been administered sucralose or reb A at no realistic doses even with chronic consumption (100 and 10 times the ADI, respectively) [10,11,21].…”

Characterization of the Cafeteria Diet as Simulation of the Human Western Diet and Its Impact on the Lipidomic Profile and Gut Microbiota in Obese Rats

“…Amplicon size was analyzed via 3% agarose gel electrophoresis (PowerPac, Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) and amplicons were purified using AMPure XP. The indices of the Nextera XT kit were added via new PCR, following Illumina’s protocol [ 19 ].…”

The Effects of Stevia Consumption on Gut Bacteria: Friend or Foe?

“…Given that the gut-brain axis plays a crucial role in the etiology of mental illness and cognitive and memory disorders, de la Garza et al indicated that maternal gut dysbiosis deteriorates learning procedures and leads to memory loss susceptibility in adult male offspring rats. A maternal high-stevia diet induced the upregulation of Bacteroidales and Clostridiales, leading to memory loss and cognitive problems in offspring lasting up to adulthood, while the changes found in these phyla were independent of their body weight gain [41]. A summary of the above discussed studies is shown in Table 2.…”

“…More specifically, alpha diversity is defined as "the average species diversity in a particular area or habitat", and beta diversity as "the diversity of species between two habitats or the measure of similarity or dissimilarity of two regions" [42]. In our review, we detected eight studies measuring alpha diversity, using a variety of different indices (Shannon index, Simpson index, Pielou's evenness, Operational Taxonomic Units, Chao1 richness, and Faith's Phylogenetic Diversity Index) [27,29,34,35,[37][38][39]41]. Further-more, we identified three studies evaluating beta diversity [34,38,39] (Table 3).…”