A very common additive, E415, which serves as a thickener could be digested by certain bacteria in our microbiota.
A very common additive, E415, which serves as a thickener could be digested by certain bacteria in our microbiota. The health implications are still unknown at this time.
Xanthan gum, or E415, is an additive present in many industrial foods in which it serves as a thickener. It is a long branched chain composed of four sugars : glucose , mannose, glucuronic acid and pyruvic acid. It is considered non-hazardous to health because it is not metabolized by the human body. However, a recent study published in Nature Microbiology indicates that xanthan gum has an effect, not on our cells, but on the bacteria of our microbiota .intestinal. This additive has only been present in the so-called Western diet - where ultra-processed foods have an important place - for about fifty years. A blink of an eye in terms of evolution, yet intestinal bacteria have evolved enzymes capable of breaking up xanthan gum and digesting it.
An additive digested by intestinal bacteria
One of the bacteria in question belongs to the Ruminococcaceae family. Its "xanthanophage" activity was brought to light by two researchers from the University of Michigan in the United States during a series of experiments carried out on human samples, laboratory mice and then bioinformatics analyses. “ The bacterium that can digest xanthan gum has been isolated from the gut microbiota of a surprisingly large number of people in industrialized countries ,” explains Sabina Leanti La Rosa, one of the researchers who took part in the project.
A second bacterium, Bacteroides intestinalis , capable of digesting the additive was isolated from a single sample. The latter could digest the remains of the xanthan gum after the first bacterium attacked the entire molecule . Does this affect our health? It still seems too early to tell. According to Sabina Leanti La Rosa: “ Based on this study, we cannot conclude if and how xanthan gum affects our health. But we can say that this additive affects the intestinal microbiota of people who ingest it through food. »
Long approved, xanthan gum was reassessed by the European Food Safety Authority ( EFSA ) in 2017. The article concludes that xanthan gum is not hazardous to health, although it may produce laxative effects in some people. Already at the time, it was mentioned that the additive “ could be partially fermented during its passage through the large intestine by the action of the intestinal microbiota ”. The study conducted at the University of Michigan confirms this. E415 is not the first additive suspected of altering the intestinal flora; E171 and E466could be involved in inflammatory problems in the gut.
