The Impact of Artificial Sweeteners and Natural Sweeteners on The Lipid and Carbohydrate Metabolism of Caenorhabditis Elegans

There has been ongoing controversy in the scientific community regarding the safety and health effects of artificial sweeteners and natural sweeteners. To explore the potential safety hazards of sweeteners on the human body, this study used the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and inoculated them in solutions of glucose, the artificial sweetener aspartame, and the natural sweetener stevioside. The experiment observed and recorded the worm's egg-laying number, pumping number/30s, relative glucose levels, and relative lipid content. Additionally, transcriptome sequencing was performed on the C. elegans samples from the 3 mg/ml aspartame group, 10 mM stevioside group, 100 mM glucose group, and control group, using the wild-type strain N2 as the reference genome. Gene expression levels were calculated using the TPM method, and differentially expressed genes were identified using the FDR < 0.05 threshold. Pathway enrichment analysis of the differentially expressed genes was conducted using the KEGG and Gene OntologyBiological Process (BP) databases. Integrating the physiological and biochemical indicators with the analysis of differentially expressed genes, it was found that aspartame may increase relative glucose levels and reduce relative lipid level in the body by upregulating precursor energy metabolism and oxidative phosphorylation pathways. Conversely, the experiment suggests that stevioside may lower relative glucose levels and promote relative lipid level by downregulating catabolism and lipid metabolism. This indicates that caution should also be exercised when consuming stevioside, which is considered a relatively healthy natural sweetener. Furthermore, this study provides new research directions for understanding the effects of artificial sweeteners and natural sweeteners on organism metabolism.