Do you suffer from frequent bloating, gas, cramping, constipation or diarrhea?

The sweetener you mix into your coffee every morning could be to blame.

That's according to a study showing that adding sucralose to coffee can reduce healthy gut bacteria, which in turn causes inflammation that can lead to "leaky gut syndrome" — the culprit behind a host of gastrointestinal problems.

Which artificial sweeteners contain sucralose?

Sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, lacks the bitter taste of other artificial sweeteners, is stable at high temperatures and has a long shelf life.

For all these reasons, sucralose has become extremely popular among coffee lovers – but questions about its safety persist.

Is sucralose safe to put in coffee?

For those concerned about gut health, it's worth paying attention to studies that have found a link between inflammation, a reduction in healthy gut bacteria, and sucralose.

Dr.

Daryl Gioffre says this is because sucralose is not completely broken down during the digestive process.

“It arrives in your colon completely intact;

your gut bacteria feed on it and die.

It also accumulates in your fat cells," he writes in the book.

Gioffre says one study found that sucralose can reduce healthy gut bacteria by up to 50 percent — and that could lead to a bad case of leaky gut syndrome.

And while sugar itself has not been found to have that specific effect, Dr.

Gioffre does not recommend replacing sucralose with sugar – even natural sugar – or any other artificial sweetener.

"Sugar and artificial sweeteners are the most toxic offenders of the gut because they destroy the terrain," he told SheFinds.

Sugar breaks down into lactic acid, which is very inflammatory and corrosive to your stomach and your entire microbiome.

/Telegraph/