The sweetener you pour into your coffee may be having an impact on the algae in your backyard.
According to scientific research, the human body cannot break down sucralose, an artificial sweetener found in many zero-calorie food and drink products. The compound is so stable that it escapes water treatment processing and is in drinking water and aquatic environments.
Amelia Westmoreland led a study with the University of Florida to see if sucralose can impact blue-green algae. "It wasn't a measure of the sucralose that was already present, but rather we were going in and dosing in a controlled environment to see what happened next," said Westmoreland.
Westmoreland says the results were surprising. In brackish water environments, high levels of sweetener decreased blue-green algae populations. However, in freshwater, it did the opposite. "A hypothesis that we had was that it might be because they (blue-green algae) viewed this (sucralose) almost as a nutrient," said Westmoreland.
NBC2 asked Westmoreland if people should watch their sucralose intake.
"I personally try to consume a little bit less zero-calorie sweeteners just because I know it's not the most natural choice, but that's more of a human and anthropological concept than it is us warning against the environment. Based on the study, I would say there's a lot more questions and a lot more directions we could look into for how we might need to adjust if we need to as a community," said Westmoreland.
Now Westmoreland is hoping other scientists pick up her study and expand it.
"I think there are quite a few directions that additional scientists could take this to see how far we could go it with. As I said before, we found a lot of questions to the answers that we ended up with," said Westmoreland.