@article{schiffman_nagle_2023, title={Severe SARS-CoV-2 infection: does the artificial sweetener sucralose play a role?}, volume={10}, ISSN={["2054-4774"]}, DOI={10.1136/bmjgast-2023-001159}, number={1}, journal={BMJ OPEN GASTROENTEROLOGY}, author={Schiffman, Susan S. and Nagle, H. Troy}, year={2023}, month={May} }
@article{covington_marco_persaud_schiffman_nagle_2021, title={Artificial Olfaction in the 21St Century}, volume={21}, ISSN={["1558-1748"]}, DOI={10.1109/JSEN.2021.3076412}, abstractNote={The human olfactory system remains one of the most challenging biological systems to replicate. Humans use it without thinking, where it can measure offer protection from harm and bring enjoyment in equal measure. It is the system's real-time ability to detect and analyze complex odors that makes it difficult to replicate. The field of artificial olfaction has recruited and stimulated interdisciplinary research and commercial development for several applications that include malodor measurement, medical diagnostics, food and beverage quality, environment and security. Over the last century, innovative engineers and scientists have been focused on solving a range of problems associated with measurement and control of odor. The IEEE Sensors Journal has published Special Issues on olfaction in 2002 and 2012. Here we continue that coverage. In this article, we summarize early work in the 20 th Century that served as the foundation upon which we have been building our odor-monitoring instrumental and measurement systems. We then examine the current state of the art that has been achieved over the last two decades as we have transitioned into the 21 st Century. Much has been accomplished, but great progress is needed in sensor technology, system design, product manufacture and performance standards. In the final section, we predict levels of performance and ubiquitous applications that will be realized during in the mid to late 21 st Century.}, number={11}, journal={IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL}, author={Covington, James A. and Marco, Santiago and Persaud, Krishna C. and Schiffman, Susan S. and Nagle, H. Troy}, year={2021}, month={Jun}, pages={12969–12990} }
@misc{schiffman_nagle_2019, title={Revisited: Assessing the in vivo data on low/no-calorie sweeteners and the gut microbiota}, volume={132}, ISSN={["1873-6351"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.fct.2019.110692}, abstractNote={Over the last two decades, safety concerns about low/no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) have been described in the archival scientific literature including elevated risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, excessive weight gain, cardiovascular disease, safety, and disruption of the gut microbiome. A recent review by Lobach, Roberts, and Roland in Food and Chemical Toxicology examined 17 research articles on modulation of gut bacteria by LNCS along with other selected publications. In the conclusions of their paper, they claim that LNCS 1) do not affect gut microbiota at use levels and 2) are safe at levels approved by regulatory agencies. Both of these claims are incorrect. The scientific literature on LNCS clearly indicates that it is inappropriate to draw generalized conclusions regarding effects on gut microbiota and safety issues for compounds that vary widely chemical structure and pharmacokinetics. Scientific studies on the sweetener sucralose, used here as a representative LNCS, indicate that this organochlorine compound unequivocally and irrefutably disrupts the gut microbiome at doses relevant to human use. Results of dozens of additional research publications added and reviewed here also raise significant and extensive concerns about the safety of sucralose for the human food supply.}, journal={FOOD AND CHEMICAL TOXICOLOGY}, author={Schiffman, Susan S. and Nagle, H. Troy}, year={2019}, month={Oct} }
@article{nagle_schiffman_2018, title={Electronic Taste and Smell: The Case for Performance Standards}, volume={106}, ISSN={["1558-2256"]}, DOI={10.1109/JPROC.2018.2859678}, abstractNote={International standards have proven invaluable in the technology sector for developing functional and reliable products for the global marketplace. Standards provide performance criteria that technical engineers can use to design products to optimize the reliability and safety of new products. For example, standards have played a decisive role in the development of products associated with the senses of vision, audition, and touch. The design of products that perform automated “visual” tasks including unmanned vehicles, autonomous robots, optical tracking systems, and highway traffic monitoring devices has relied heavily on standards as well as technical regulations. Likewise, standards related to the sense of hearing have played a major role in the development of devices and systems that assist or mimic “audition” including cochlear implants, hearing aids, and voice and speech recognition systems. Standards related to the sense of touch have been seminal in the design of robotic arms and prosthetic hands. Unlike the senses of vision, audition, and touch, there are, however, no formal standards for electronic devices called e-noses and e-tongues that are designed to detect and evaluate odors and tastes. The purpose of this opinion piece is to give a brief background on the senses of smell and taste, to describe why standards for e-noses and e-tongues are needed, and to call for IEEE volunteers to participate and collaborate on technical standards development to ensure that machine olfaction and taste provide reliable and reproducible results that are comparable to human smell and taste.}, number={9}, journal={PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE}, author={Nagle, H. Troy and Schiffman, Susan S.}, year={2018}, month={Sep}, pages={1471–1478} }
@article{bornemann_werness_buslinger_schiffman_2018, title={Intestinal Metabolism and Bioaccumulation of Sucralose In Adipose Tissue In The Rat}, volume={81}, ISSN={["1087-2620"]}, DOI={10.1080/15287394.2018.1502560}, abstractNote={The aim of this study was to (1) determine if the organochlorine artificial sweetener sucralose is metabolized in rat intestine with repeated dosing and (2) examine whether sucralose might bioaccumulate in rat adipose tissue. Sucralose was administered to 10 rats by gavage daily for 40 days at an average dosage of 80.4 mg/kg/day. The dosages were within the range utilized in historical toxicology studies submitted for regulatory approval in North America, Europe, and Asia. Feces and urine were collected individually from each animal for every 24-hr period during the 40-day dosing period. Analysis of the urine and fecal extracts by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) revealed two new biotransformation products that have not previously been reported. These two metabolites are both acetylated forms of sucralose that are less polar and hence more lipophilic than sucralose itself. These metabolites were present in urine and feces throughout the sucralose dosing period and still detected at low levels in the urine 11 days after discontinuation of sucralose administration and 6 days after sucralose was no longer detected in the urine or feces. The finding of acetylated sucralose metabolites in urine and feces do not support early metabolism studies, on which regulatory approval was based, that claimed ingested sucralose is excreted unchanged (i.e. not metabolized). The historical metabolic studies apparently failed to detect these metabolites in part because investigators used a methanol fraction from feces for analysis along with thin layer chromatography and a low-resolution linear radioactivity analyzer. Further, sucralose was found in adipose tissue in rats two weeks after cessation of the 40-day feeding period even though this compound had disappeared from the urine and feces. Thus, depuration of sucralose which accumulated in fatty tissue requires an extended period of time after discontinuation of chemical ingestion. These new findings of metabolism of sucralose in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and its accumulation in adipose tissue were not part of the original regulatory decision process for this agent and indicate that it now may be time to revisit the safety and regulatory status of this organochlorine artificial sweetener.}, number={18}, journal={JOURNAL OF TOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH-PART A-CURRENT ISSUES}, author={Bornemann, Volker and Werness, Stephen C. and Buslinger, Lauren and Schiffman, Susan S.}, year={2018}, pages={913–923} }
@article{li_hodges_gutierrez-osuna_luckey_crowell_schiffman_nagle_2016, title={Odor Assessment of Automobile Cabin Air With Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry and Photoionization Detection}, volume={16}, ISSN={["1558-1748"]}, DOI={10.1109/jsen.2015.2478853}, abstractNote={Odor quality in the cabin air of automobiles can be a significant factor in the decision to purchase a vehicle and the overall customer satisfaction with the vehicle over time. A current standard practice uses a human panel to rate the vehicle cabin odors on intensity, irritation, and pleasantness. However, human panels are expensive, time-consuming, and complicated to administer. To address this issue, we present a machine olfaction approach to assess odors inside automobiles. The approach uses a field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer and a photoionization detector to measure volatile organic compounds, and a multivariate technique to map sensor data into human ratings. Validation on an experimental dataset of odors from ten different vehicles shows a correlation (0.67–0.84) between model predictions and ground truth from a trained human panel. These results support the feasibility of replacing human panel assessments by objective instrumental means for quality control tasks in the production process.}, number={2}, journal={IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL}, author={Li, Juan and Hodges, Ryan D. and Gutierrez-Osuna, Ricardo and Luckey, Gail and Crowell, Joel and Schiffman, Susan S. and Nagle, H. Troy}, year={2016}, month={Jan}, pages={409–417} }
@article{li_gutierrez-osuna_hodges_luckey_crowell_schiffman_nagle_2016, title={Using Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry for Odor Assessment of Automobile Interior Components}, volume={16}, ISSN={["1558-1748"]}, DOI={10.1109/jsen.2016.2568209}, abstractNote={The of the quality of odors emitted from automobile cabin interiors is an important element for the design of vehicles that meet prospective customers' expectations. Extending our previous work on machine-versus-human odor assessment for intact automobile cabin interiors, in this paper, we evaluated odors generated from individual interior parts using a human panel and field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS). We used image processing techniques to extract geometric features from FAIMS dispersion fields, and built the predictive models for three odor assessment parameters (intensity, irritation, and pleasantness) by means of partial least squares regression. The best feature set was chosen by backward sequential feature selection. Using k -fold cross validation, we achieved statistically significant correlation 0.95 between human panel measured and machine olfaction predicted odor assessment scores with a sample set of 48 interior automobile parts. These results, generated using the geometric image processing methods demonstrated herein, further support the feasibility of replacing a human panel by machine olfaction for the assessment of odor quality of interior automobile parts.}, number={14}, journal={IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL}, author={Li, Juan and Gutierrez-Osuna, Ricardo and Hodges, Ryan D. and Luckey, Gail and Crowell, Joel and Schiffman, Susan S. and Nagle, H. Troy}, year={2016}, month={Jul}, pages={5747–5756} }
@misc{rother_sylvetsky_schiffman_2015, title={Non-nutritive sweeteners in breast milk: perspective on potential implications of recent findings}, volume={89}, ISSN={["1432-0738"]}, DOI={10.1007/s00204-015-1611-9}, abstractNote={We recently determined that nonnutritive (NNS) sweeteners ingested by lactating mothers are passed to their infants in breast milk (Sylvetsky et al., 2015). Three NNS including sucralose, acesulfame-K (ace-K), and saccharin were found in the breast milk of 65% of twenty lactating women who had been enrolled in the study, irrespective of their history of NNS usage. While most of the mothers reported NNS intake during the day prior to collection of the breast milk sample, NNS were also found in samples from women who were not aware of consuming NNS. The findings that NNS are present in breast milk raises several issues regarding infant exposure to these nonnutritive compounds and highlights the need for future research studying the potential short- and long-term effects of exposure to NNS early in life.}, number={11}, journal={ARCHIVES OF TOXICOLOGY}, author={Rother, Kristina I. and Sylvetsky, Allison C. and Schiffman, S. S.}, year={2015}, month={Nov}, pages={2169–2171} }
@misc{schiffman_rother_2013, title={SUCRALOSE, A SYNTHETIC ORGANOCHLORINE SWEETENER: OVERVIEW OF BIOLOGICAL ISSUES}, volume={16}, ISSN={["1521-6950"]}, DOI={10.1080/10937404.2013.842523}, abstractNote={Sucralose is a synthetic organochlorine sweetener (OC) that is a common ingredient in the world's food supply. Sucralose interacts with chemosensors in the alimentary tract that play a role in sweet taste sensation and hormone secretion. In rats, sucralose ingestion was shown to increase the expression of the efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and two cytochrome P-450 (CYP) isozymes in the intestine. P-gp and CYP are key components of the presystemic detoxification system involved in first-pass drug metabolism. The effect of sucralose on first-pass drug metabolism in humans, however, has not yet been determined. In rats, sucralose alters the microbial composition in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), with relatively greater reduction in beneficial bacteria. Although early studies asserted that sucralose passes through the GIT unchanged, subsequent analysis suggested that some of the ingested sweetener is metabolized in the GIT, as indicated by multiple peaks found in thin-layer radiochromatographic profiles of methanolic fecal extracts after oral sucralose administration. The identity and safety profile of these putative sucralose metabolites are not known at this time. Sucralose and one of its hydrolysis products were found to be mutagenic at elevated concentrations in several testing methods. Cooking with sucralose at high temperatures was reported to generate chloropropanols, a potentially toxic class of compounds. Both human and rodent studies demonstrated that sucralose may alter glucose, insulin, and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) levels. Taken together, these findings indicate that sucralose is not a biologically inert compound.}, number={7}, journal={JOURNAL OF TOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH-PART B-CRITICAL REVIEWS}, author={Schiffman, Susan S. and Rother, Kristina I.}, year={2013}, month={Oct}, pages={399–451} }
@article{schiffman_graham_williams_2008, title={Dispersion modeling to compare alternative technologies for odor remediation at swine facilities}, volume={58}, ISSN={["2162-2906"]}, DOI={10.3155/1047-3289.58.9.1166}, abstractNote={The effectiveness of 18 alternative technologies for reducing odor dispersion at and beyond the boundary of swine facilities was assessed in conjunction with an initiative sponsored through agreements between the Attorney General of North Carolina and Smithfield Foods, Premium Standard Farms, and Frontline Farmers. The trajectory and spatial distribution of odor emitted at each facility were modeled at 200 and 400 m downwind from each site under two meteorological conditions (daytime and nighttime) using a Eulerian-Lagrangian model. To predict the dispersion of odor downwind, the geographical area containing the odorant sources at each facility was partitioned into 10-m2 grids on the basis of satellite photographs and architectural drawings. Relative odorant concentrations were assigned to each grid point on the basis of intensity measurements made by the trained odor panel at each facility using a 9-point rating scale. The results of the modeling indicated that odor did not extend significantly beyond 400 m downwind of any of the test sites during the daytime when the layer of air above the earth's surface is usually turbulent. However, modeling indicated that odor from all full-scale farms extended beyond 400 m onto neighboring property in the evenings when deep surface cooling through long-wave radiation to space produces a stable (nocturnal) boundary layer. The results also indicated that swine housing, independent of waste management type, plays a significant role in odor downwind, as do odor sources of moderate to moderately high intensity that emanate from a large surface area such as a lagoon. Human odor assessments were utilized for modeling rather than instrument measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, or particulates less than 10 microm in diameter (PM10) because these physical measurements obtained simultaneously with human panel ratings were not found to accurately predict human odor intensity in the field.}, number={9}, journal={JOURNAL OF THE AIR & WASTE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION}, author={Schiffman, Susan S. and Graham, Brevick G. and Williams, C. Mike}, year={2008}, month={Sep}, pages={1166–1176} }
@article{bottcher_keener_munilla_williams_schiffman_2000, title={Dust and odor emissions from tunnel ventilated swine buildings in North Carolina}, ISBN={1892769123}, journal={Air pollution from agricultural operations : proceedings of the 2nd international conference, October 9-11, 2000, Des Moines, Iowa}, publisher={St. Joseph, Mich. : American Society of Agricultural Engineers}, author={Bottcher, R. W. and Keener, K. M. and Munilla, R. D. and Williams, C. M. and Schiffman, S. S.}, year={2000}, pages={196} }
@article{bottcher_keener_munilla_williams_schiffman_2000, title={Scent of a swine building: Tunnel ventilation problems test engineers' ingenuity}, volume={7}, ISBN={1076-3333}, number={10}, journal={Resource, Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World}, author={Bottcher, R. W. and Keener, K. M. and Munilla, R. D. and Williams, C. M. and Schiffman, S. S.}, year={2000}, pages={13} }