How do food emulsifiers affect negative moods?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Most food emulsifiers affect mental health and cause behavioral disorders in humans. Emulsifiers lead to chronic intestinal inflammation, obesity and changes in the composition of the intestinal flora …

Short review

• Emulsifiers in processed foods destroy microbes in your gut, leading to metabolic disruption and even negatively affecting your brain
• Because the gut and brain communicate through the gut-brain axis, altering the composition of the microbes in the gut can contribute to anxiety, which is why researchers speculate that emulsifiers affect mental health and cause behavioral disorders.
• Research confirms that exposure to emulsifiers leads to chronic intestinal inflammation, obesity and altered gut flora in mice
• Emulsifiers cause chronic non-specific inflammation in the body, which is definitely closely associated with depression
• The best way to avoid emulsifiers in your diet is to avoid processed foods and replace them with real, whole foods.

When you eat processed foods, you are not only exposed to unhealthy ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and synthetic fats, but also additives used to create uniform, shelf-stable foods. Studies show that emulsifiers, including carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and polysorbate 80 (P80), can lead to inflammation, anxiety and depression in those who consume them.

If you've ever made a salad dressing or mayonnaise yourself, you probably know that the ingredients naturally separate as oil and water don't mix. However, store-bought salad dressings and mayonnaise remain consistent.

This is due to emulsifiers that mix immiscible ingredients while reducing stickiness, controlling crystallization and preventing delamination.

Their benefits for the food industry are obvious, but in your body they can wreak havoc among the microbes in your gut, leading to metabolic disturbances and even negatively affecting the brain.

Food emulsifiers can affect the brain and behavior

Previous studies have shown that the addition of food emulsifiers CMC and P80 to the diet leads to non-specific inflammation, obesity and metabolic disturbances in mice, while at the same time disrupting the intestinal flora.

Since the gut and brain communicate through the gut-brain axis, altered microbial composition in the gut can contribute to anxiety, which is why researchers speculate that emulsifiers affect mental health and cause behavioral disorders. Indeed, a study in mice has confirmed that exposure to emulsifiers leads to chronic gut inflammation, obesity and altered gut flora.

“It is important to note that exposure to emulsifiers changed the anxiety-like behavior in males and made it less social in females. In addition, the expression of neuropeptides involved in modulating feeding, as well as behavior associated with sociality and anxiety, changed, the researchers write in Scientific Reports.

In short, these common dietary supplements have led to changes in the microbiota, physiology, and behavior in mice, and it is possible that similar effects could occur in humans. The study authors concluded:

Food emulsifiers can negatively affect your gut, leading to metabolic disorders

By 2015, it had already been found that low concentrations of emulsifiers (CMC and P80) induced nonspecific inflammation, obesity, and metabolic syndrome in mice. This may be due to the detergent-like nature of the chemicals that disrupt interactions between the mucous structures that cover the intestinal surface and bacteria.

The mucus barrier separates the gut bacteria and the epithelial cells lining the intestines, but rupture can lead to intestinal inflammation and related diseases. Researchers have even suggested that emulsifiers may increase the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an autoimmune condition in which the gastrointestinal tract becomes inflamed.

This includes both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Emulsifiers caused chronic colitis in mice with already compromised immune systems, and in healthy mice, they led to mild intestinal inflammation and subsequent metabolic dysfunction, leading to obesity, hyperglycemia and insulin resistance.

The amount of emulsifiers consumed was similar to what the average person is exposed to if they eat a lot of processed foods, suggesting that these additives may indeed affect the health of many Americans.

Further studies have also found that exposure to CMC and P80 alters the structure and transport properties of intestinal mucus, which can affect the interaction between the contents of the intestinal lumen, microbes and underlying tissue, promoting inflammation.

Emulsifiers can also alter the functional characteristics of the intestinal microflora, for example, increase the expression of flagellin (a protein), which in turn increases the bacteria's ability to penetrate the mucosal barrier.

Carrageenan, another popular emulsifier, has been linked to health risks

Carrageenan, an emulsifier derived from red seaweed, is also commonly added as a thickener in processed foods. This is another dietary supplement that you need to be aware of, such as CMC and P80, as it has been linked to inflammation and other health risks.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified degraded carrageenan as a possible human carcinogen. It is treated with acid instead of alkali (like food) and causes inflammation so severe that it is used for this purpose in laboratory studies on animals to test the effectiveness of anti-inflammatory drugs.

Although dietary carrageenan is a separate product, there is concern that stomach acid could convert dietary carrageenan into a potentially carcinogenic degraded once it is ingested.

In addition, exposure to even non-degraded (i.e. dietary) carrageenan has been associated with an increased incidence of intestinal ulcers and potentially cancers. A 2016 report from the Cornucopia Institute identified additional health risks for carrageenan, and a host of studies raise serious concerns about its inflammatory properties.

Why Inflammatory Emulsifiers May Promote Depression

Emulsifiers cause chronic nonspecific inflammation in the body, with which depression is closely associated. Not only are elevated biomarkers of inflammation commonly found in people with depression, but stimulation of inflammation has been shown to cause symptoms of depression.

Inflammatory cytokines in the body are thought to interact with several pathways involved in depression, including neuroendocrine system function and mood regulation."Depression and inflammation feed off each other," the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Psychiatry, adding that in the case of inflammation, "depression fancies the flame and enjoys the warmth."

“Inflammation plays a key role in the pathogenesis of depression for a subclass of people with depression, and it also increases the cytokine response to stressors and pathogens that are infrequent,” they said. Edward Ballmore, head of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, estimates that about a third of patients with depression are affected by inflammation.

Ballmore is the author of Inflamed Mind: A Radically New Approach to Depression, which explores the importance of inflammation in the development of depression.

He told CBS News, “We've known for a long time that there was a connection. Inflammation and depression go hand in hand. If you have, for example, arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and these are all inflammatory diseases, the risk of depression will be significantly higher. The new understanding is that this connection can be causal. It's not just a coincidence."

With inflammation, microglial brain cells are activated. When this happens, an enzyme, indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase (IDO), redirects tryptophan from the production of serotonin and melatonin to the production of an NMDA (amino acid derivative) agonist called quinolinic acid, which can cause anxiety and agitation.

There are many sources of inflammation in the world today, from diet and pollution to emotional stress, and emulsifiers in processed foods are likely to make this problem worse.

If you suffer from depression, you should take steps to reduce inflammation in your body, starting with avoiding processed foods, a common source of exposure to emulsifiers and other inflammatory agents.

What are the emulsifiers?

Besides carboxymethyl cellulose, polysorbate 80 and carrageenan, similar emulsifiers are lecithin and xanthan gum. Fatty acid mono- and diglycerides, stearoyl lactylates, sucrose esters and polyglycerol polyricinoleate are also common emulsifiers used in processed foods to:

• Improve the appearance of foods by keeping them from delamination or other signs of instability
• Expiration dates
• Improvements in taste, color, odor and consistency
• Unpleasant odor encapsulation
• Produce low-fat foods that have the same consistency as full-fat options

If you consume processed foods, you are likely consuming emulsifiers, but these are most commonly found in the following foods:

Pastries including bread, biscuits and cakes	Fatty spreads such as margarine, peanut butter and confectionery fat
Ice cream and other dairy desserts	Vegetarian burgers and hamburger patties
Salad dressing and mayonnaise	Sweets, including caramel, toffee, gummies, chocolates, and hard candies
Beverages, including soda, wines, and cream liqueurs	Dairy-free milk

Concerns about emulsifiers are becoming more and more justified, as no one knows the true amount a person consumes on average. Many emulsifiers are used in conjunction with other types of emulsifiers and can have synergistic or greater health effects when consumed in this manner.

In addition, some supplements, including CMC and carrageenan, are not metabolized, which means they could potentially affect the entire gastrointestinal tract. Although many animal studies have been conducted to examine the safety (or lack thereof) of emulsifiers, little is known with certainty about their potential toxicity.

"Most emulsifiers and thickeners have an undetermined level of toxicity, as the highest dose required to produce adverse effects is much higher than what would reasonably be consumed in experimental animals," according to a study in Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

How to avoid emulsifiers in your diet

To avoid emulsifiers in processed foods, read labels and look for the following additives:

Carboxymethyl cellulose	Polysorbate 80
Carrageenan	Lecithin
Xanthan gum	Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids
Stearoyl lactylates	Sucrose esters
Polyglycerol polyricinoleate

However, it is important to understand that products may contain emulsifiers that are not listed on the label if they make up less than 5 percent of the final product and do not provide "processing function".

"An example of this is … citrus sodas, which use stabilizers as a weighting agent," the researchers explained. "Indeed, many citrus soft drinks do not list stabilizer additives on the ingredient lists, but the flavor remains stable and evenly dispersed throughout the bottle."

Even choosing organic foods is not a guarantee that you are avoiding emulsifiers. Organic watchdog groups such as the Cornucopia Institute have called for carrageenan to be removed from the list of approved organic ingredients in the United States.

In December 2016, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) and the US Department of Agriculture Expert Advisory Council (USDA) voted to do just that. After hearing testimony about potential health risks as well as the availability of alternatives, the NOSB voted to remove carrageenan from its organic ingredient list.

In April 2018, however, the USDA canceled the NOSB advice and re-approved carrageenan for use in organic foods. The Cornucopia Institute has also created a buying guide to avoid organic carrageenan products to help you make the right choice. To avoid these additives in your food, it's best to read labels carefully and choose whole, unprocessed foods as often as possible.