COMPUTATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF THE PHARMACOKINETICS AND TOXICITY OF THE INTENSIVE SWEETENERS

Abstract

The present study focuses on predicting the pharmacokinetics and toxicological endpoints of the widely used intensive sweeteners for preventing and management of diabetes: acesulfame K, advantame, aspartame, cyclamates, glycyrrhizin, neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, neotame, saccharin, steviol, sucralose, and tagatose. Predictions obtained using several computational tools were generally in good agreement each other and with few known data concerning the effects of these compounds on humans. The possible side effects produced by these sweeteners are: h-ERG blocking potential (glycyrrhizin, neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, advantame), eye and skin injuries (acesulfame K, cyclamates, saccharine), hepatotoxicity (saccharine), nephrotoxicity (steviol, glycyrrhizin), hypotension (advantame), mutagenicity and genotoxic carcinogenicity (acesulfame K, sucralose).