The effect of natural sugar and sweeteners on normal and cancerous human fibroblasts

Non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) have seen increasingly common usage amongst foodstuffs in the westernized diet in the past few decades, including processed foods and flavored beverages. Recently, an increasing body of research has been evaluating the potential of NNS for alternative uses in healthcare and medicine. Some of these sweeteners, such as stevioside, have been implicated as being anti-hypertensive, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-inflammatory in several contexts. To examine the potential of NNS such as stevioside as an anti-carcinogenic agent, cellular behavior of HFF-1 human foreskin fibroblasts (ATCC SCRC-1041) & COLO-829 human melanoma fibroblasts (ATCC CRL-1974) was observed in the presence of sucrose, sucralose, and stevioside on collagen. This study examined the impact of NNS on initial adhesion, cellular proliferation, and integrin expression on healthy and cancerous fibroblast cell lines. The results indicate that 5 mg/mL stevioside caused more than 2-fold decrease in the initial adhesion of healthy cells but caused more than 4-fold increase in the initial adhesion of cancerous cells. In terms of proliferation, stevioside at 5 mg/mL caused a 13-fold decrease in cancer cell proliferation, proportional to concentration, but a 1.5-fold increase in proliferation for healthy cells.