| 55 Lb bags of CMC shipped to USA from China |
CarboxyMethylCellulose
More evidence that a common food ingredient, that we have been warning for a while, is bad for you.
On Feb 28th 205, we Tweeted and Blogged about the problems of certain food ingredients, including carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) (see inset). We have been pointing out the connection between the increased use of CMC and various gastro enteric problems for a couple of years.
Cellulose occurs in nature but CMC is artificially made by adding carboxymethyl groups (-CH2-COOH) to cellulose. It is done to make the cellulose soluble, and chemically reactive, and is usually found as its sodium salt, sodium carboxymethylcellulose.
The functional properties of CMC depend on how many of the hydroxyl groups have taken part in the substitution reaction, as well as the chain length of the cellulose backbone structure, and the amount of clustering of the carboxymethyl groups.
A couple of days ago the following article appeared. We are publishing the abstract, as is-
AUTHORS: Benoit Chassaing, Omry Koren, Julia K. Goodrich, Angela C. Poole, Shanthi Srinivasan, Ruth E. Ley, Andrew T. Gewirtz
Abstract
The intestinal tract is inhabited by a large and diverse community of microbes collectively referred to as the gut microbiota. While the gut microbiota provides important benefits to its host, especially in metabolism and immune development, disturbance of the microbiota-host relationship is associated with numerous chronic inflammatory diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease and the group of obesity-associated diseases collectively referred to as metabolic syndrome. A primary means by which the intestine is protected from its microbiota is via multi-layered mucus structures that cover the intestinal surface, thereby allowing the vast majority of gut bacteria to be kept at a safe distance from epithelial cells that line the intestine. Thus, agents that disrupt mucus-bacterial interactions might have the potential to promote diseases associated with gut inflammation. Consequently, it has been hypothesized that emulsifiers, detergent-like molecules that are a ubiquitous component of processed foods and that can increase bacterial translocation across epithelia in vitro, might be promoting the increase in inflammatory bowel disease observed since the mid-twentieth century. Here we report that, in mice, relatively low concentrations of two commonly used emulsifiers, namely carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80, induced low-grade inflammation and obesity/metabolic syndrome in wild-type hosts and promoted robust colitis in mice predisposed to this disorder. Emulsifier-induced metabolic syndrome was associated with microbiota encroachment, altered species composition and increased pro-inflammatory potential. Use of germ-free mice and faecal transplants indicated that such changes in microbiota were necessary and sufficient for both low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome. These results support the emerging concept that perturbed host-microbiota interactions resulting in low-grade inflammation can promote adiposity and its associated metabolic effects. Moreover, they suggest that the broad use of emulsifying agents might be contributing to an increased societal incidence ofobesity/metabolic syndrome and other chronic inflammatory diseases.
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