A new study has found that drinking soft drinks with added white sugar can change the DNA of gut bacteria and affect the immune system—but the good news is that these effects can be reversed.
The research, published in Nature Communications, was led by Prof. Naama Geva-Zatorsky and her team at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
They discovered that soft drinks sweetened with white sugar can influence the way gut bacteria behave by altering their DNA.
This, in turn, affects how the immune system functions.
Gut bacteria play a critical role in our overall health. They are part of the body’s microbiome—a collection of microorganisms that live inside us and help regulate everything from digestion to immune responses.
These microbes have co-evolved with humans over thousands of years, and we depend on them to stay healthy.
The gut is highly sensitive to changes in our environment, especially diet. Our gut bacteria need to constantly adapt, and they do this through a process called functional plasticity. This allows them to switch their behavior based on factors such as illness, nearby microbes, or what we eat.
In earlier work, the Geva-Zatorsky lab showed that gut bacteria can adapt quickly through something called DNA inversion. These are like tiny genetic switches that help bacteria respond to environmental changes.
In this new study, researchers looked at how different types of food affect these DNA switches, focusing on a common gut bacterium called Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. This bacterium helps keep the gut lining healthy, prevents inflammation, and defends the body from harmful invaders.
The researchers found that when mice or people consumed soft drinks with white sugar, the DNA of these bacteria flipped in certain ways.
This led to changes in how the immune system responded, including increased inflammation, altered T-cell activity, and changes in how well the gut barrier worked.
However, there’s a silver lining. When the mice stopped drinking sugary soft drinks, their gut bacteria’s DNA returned to its original state, and their immune system function returned to normal. This suggests that the damage caused by sugary soft drinks isn’t permanent and can be reversed with dietary changes.
The study highlights how strongly our diet can affect the delicate balance of our gut bacteria and immune system. It also suggests that by understanding these effects, scientists may one day offer personalized nutrition advice to help people improve their gut health and immune function—starting with cutting back on sugary drinks.
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