Abstract
Chronic excessive intake of refined sugars contributes to the incidence of pathologies such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. Sweeteners are an alternative used to replace sugar in food. Although they are considered innocuous, recent studies have shown they may have unwanted effects in humans. The objective of this study is to determine the expression of the growth factor IGF‐II and its receptor in the central nervous system of mice supplemented with sweeteners for prolonged periods of time. Four groups of 8 week‐old mice were used: A control group (without supplementation), and three groups supplemented with either sucrose, stevia or sucralose in their drinking water. The animals were supplemented for 6 weeks. After supplementation, the brain and spinal cord were dissected and their proteins purified to determine the expression of IGF‐II or IGF‐IIR by western blot. Our results show decreased expression of IGF‐II only on brain tissue from male individuals in the stevia‐supplemented group, compared to all other groups, whereas the expression of IGF‐IIR decreased for both males and females also in the stevia group, but not in the other groups. Our results suggest that chronic intake of stevia may alter the expression of IGF‐II and IGF‐IIR in cells from the central nervous system, which may have detrimental effects on essential physiologic mechanisms in nervous tissue.
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