Effects of high dose aspartame-based sweetener on the gut microbiota and bone strength in young and aged mice

Background: Recent reassessment of the safety of aspartame has prompted increased evaluation of its effect on the health of a range of tissues. The gut microbiome is altered by oral aspartame. One prior study suggested that changes in the microbiome caused by aspartame could influence the strength of bone in young skeletally developing mice. Here we ask how aspartame influences bone in mice of different age and sex.
Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the effect of aspartame on the bone strength and gut microbiota of young and aged mice.
Methods: Male and female C57Bl/6J mice were untreated or treated with a high dose of aspartame in their drinking water from 1 month of age until 4 (young cohort; n = 80) or 22 months (aged cohort; n = 52).
Results: In aged males, mice treated with aspartame had greater body mass, whole bone strength, and femoral geometry relative to untreated. Specifically, in aged males, aspartame led to 9% increase in body mass (p < 0.001), 22% ..., Dataset collected using 3-point bending of hydrated mouse femurs and micro-computed x-ray tomography of mouse femurs., , # Data from: Effects of high dose aspartame-based sweetener on the gut microbiota and bone strength in young and aged mice

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bk3j9kdk6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bk3j9kdk6)

This dataset includes raw biomechanics and micro-computed tomography femoral geometric measurements (excel file) corresponding to a cohort of young (4 month old) and aged (22 month old) male and female C57Bl/6J mice that have either received chronic high dose aspartame in their drinking water (10 g/L) from 1-4 months of age (young cohort) or 1-22 months of age (aged cohort) or untreated. This dataset also includes custom-written code for processing micro-CT images in Fiji (with BoneJ plug-in) and 3 point bending mechanical testing Matlab code for analyzing maximum force and force vs. displacement curves.

## Description of the data and file structure

The excel file contains the raw male and female measurements of body mass, fat pad mass, biomechanics (max moment, tissue strength,...