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<TITLE>Artificial sweeteners in Grand River</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10.5pt'> December 11, 2013 <BR>
</SPAN><FONT SIZE="7"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:36pt'><B> Ontario's Grand River loaded with artificial sweeteners, study finds <BR>
</B></SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10.5pt'> By IVAN SEMENIUK<BR>
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</SPAN><FONT SIZE="5"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:18pt'><B> Scientists with Environment Canada and the University of Waterloo repeatedly sampled 23 sites along the Grand River system as well as household taps <BR>
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Ontario's Grand River is so chock full of artificial sweeteners that scientists say the chemicals can be used to track the movement of treated waste in the region's municipal water supplies.<BR>
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Artificial sweeteners are used as sugar substitutes in diet drinks and foods.<BR>
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They impart no calories because they are not readily broken down in the human digestive system, so they tend to exit the body intact.<BR>
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But that persistence also means the sweeteners linger long after they are flushed away.<BR>
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They survive processing in waste-water treatment plants, find their way into the environment and reappear in drinking water.<BR>
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As part of a long-term study,1 scientists with Environment Canada and the University of Waterloo repeatedly sampled 23 sites along the Grand River system as well as household taps.<BR>
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Four artificial sweeteners – acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate and sucralose – were detected, in some cases at higher concentrations than reported anywhere else in the world.<BR>
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At one site, the researcher calculated that the equivalent of 90,000 to 190,000 cans of diet soda were being consumed each day to account for the quantity of acesulfame they measured.<BR>
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"If you think about all those cans of pop floating down the river, it's quite an image," said Sherry Schiff, a biogeochemist at the University of Waterloo and a co-author of the study, published Wednesday in the open access journal PLOS ONE.<BR>
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Nearly one million people live in the region, which includes the communities of Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge and Brantford.<BR>
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About half of those people rely on the Grand for their drinking water.<BR>
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While the presence of the sweeteners in drinking water may come as an unwelcome surprise to some, the authors say their main aim is to track the chemicals as an indicator of where treated waste water is ending up.<BR>
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This can help environmental researchers estimate exposures to other chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals, that breakdown more quickly and are harder to spot.<BR>
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Although artificial sweeteners have been deemed safe for human consumption, their impact on the environment is not well known.<BR>
</SPAN><FONT SIZE="5"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:18pt'><B>References<BR>
</B></SPAN></FONT></FONT><OL><LI><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10.5pt'>www.plosone.org/article/info%3adoi%2f10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0082706<BR>
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Globe and Mail<BR>
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John Jackson<BR>
17 Major Street<BR>
Kitchener, Ontario N2H 4R1<BR>
519-744-7503<BR>
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