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Common artificial sweeteners such as saccharine and aspartame could speed up the spread of antibiotic resistance, according to University of Queensland research.
More than 117,000 tonnes of artificial sweeteners are consumed across the world each year and are accepted as safe food additives, but their effects on antibiotic resistance had been unknown.
Associate Professor Jianhua Guo, from UQ’s Advanced Water Management Centre, said scientists investigated if artificial sweeteners would encourage the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes between bacteria.
“Our previous studies have reported many common household items promote antibiotic resistance, so recently we started wondering if artificial sweeteners may also play a role,” Dr Guo said.
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ABOVE: UNIVERSITY OF THE SUNSHINE COAST, AUSTRALIA
Growing up in the lush countryside of Geneva, Switzerland, Celine Frere spent the bulk of her childhood outside “with nature, in nature, observing nature, and admiring nature,” she says. Her parents were dealing with their own problems her mother struggled with mental illness and her father wasn’t around much so Frere sought solace in the animals that roamed the rolling hills around her. “I was always fascinated by this inability to communicate [with animals], yet we can have such great connections with them,” she tells
The Scientist.
By the end of high school, Frere sought to escape Switzerland. Its cold climate didn’t suit her, and because she identified as a lesbian, neither did its socially conservative culture. She set her sights on Australia, where in 1999 she enrolled at the University of Queensland and turned her fascination with animals into a scientific pursuit. “You respect nature even more in Australia b