1. Demographic characteristics

"Engineering probiotics" is a new concept. People may have different opinions on the controversy of genetic engineering in the medical and health field in recent years. However, it is undeniable that people gradually know engineering probiotics. Through observation, the health concept of sugar substitutes and erythritol is promoted to young people through social media and video platforms. At the same time, we also noticed that with the increase in age and the decrease in basal metabolic rate, more middle-aged and older people began to pay attention to controlling the intake of free sugar in food. We mainly hope to find the target population for promoting sugar substitutes, erythritol, and engineered probiotics by counting the subjects' age, education levels, and occupations. Although we have shared it with people of different ages and fields as much as possible, we cannot reach a broader range of people on social software. Therefore, the population participating in this survey has certain limitations. Among them, 44.35% of the subjects are practitioners and students in biology, medicine, and related fields, which also allows us to understand better the differences between professional and nonprofessional views on these health-related issues.

2. The public's attitude towards sugar substitutes

Next, we used a four-item five-level scale to investigate the public's attitude towards sugar substitutes. Question 1, 3, and 4 are forward questions, and question 2 is reverse. Question 1 and 4 focused on the subject's willingness to buy sugar substitutes. Question 3 focused on the advertising effect of sugar substitutes, and Question 2 focused on the subject's feelings about the taste of sugar substitutes. The average score on the scale is 3, below the average score represents a negative attitude, while above the average score represents a positive attitude. See Table 1 for statistical results.

Table 1. Comparison of sugar substitute products and traditional sugar products

First, we analyzed the population scale. The average value of the population scale is 11.33, and the standard deviation is 3.373. The average score of the scale is distributed on the left side of "uncertainty" (3 * 4=12), indicating that the public generally has a negative attitude towards the taste and purchase intention of sugar substitutes. Taking 3 * 4=12 as the null hypothesis H0, the test proved a significant difference between the mean value of the total score of the population scale and the null hypothesis (t=58.265, P>0.05). Subsequently, we conducted a one-way ANOVA on the total score of the population scale in terms of age, educational background, and whether they are biomedical students or practitioners. It can be seen that there is no statistically significant correlation between the acceptance of sugar substitute food and the willingness to buy(Tucky HSD, α=0.05, p>0.10).

Fig 1. The histogram of a frequency distribution of the total score of the scale

Next, we conducted a one-way ANOVA item by item. We found significant differences in the taste of sugar substitutes among different age groups (Tucky HSD, α= 0.05, p>0.10). Younger people are more likely to consider that sugar substitutes have a poor taste (Fig.2a). At the same time, we found that people with further education will be more likely to be attracted by the advertisement of sugar substitute products (Fig. 2b). And they are more likely to choose food and drinks with sugar substitutes (Fig. 2c). However, whether the respondents were students or practitioners in the biomedical field, there was no significant correlation between the willingness to consume sugar substitute products.

Fig 2. Effect of different factors on the attitude toward sugar substitute products.
(a) Effect of age on evaluation of taste of sugar substitute products.
(b) Effect of academic degree on the attractiveness of advertisement of sugar substitute products.
(c) Effect of academic degree on the preference of sugar substitute products.

3. Public Attitude towards Probiotic Products

Engineering Probiotic products have not yet been put into the food market. The application of probiotic products in the food and drug markets has matured. We first investigated the public's purchase and accessibility of these products.

In the probiotics category, 96.0%, 49.3%, and 15.6% of respondents had bought probiotic food, medicine, and health care products, respectively (Fig. 3a), indicating that probiotic food and medicine are indeed widely used in the market. The popularity of probiotic health products needs to be improved. More people will buy probiotic products to Treatconsistency or diarrhea, provide Daily health care, and lose weight reasonably (Fig. 3b). We also used the Likert option to investigate the public's attitude towards the function and safety of probiotic products. The results are optimistic (Mean=3.78, Average=3), indicating that the public trusts probiotic products (Fig. 3c). There was no significant difference in age, educational background, and major.

Fig 3. The public's availability, accessibility, and attitude toward probiotic products.

4. Attitude towards engineering probiotics

We briefly introduced the concept of engineering probiotic products and engineering probiotic therapy to the subjects on the questionnaire and asked them about their attitude towards the safety of probiotic engineering products and their willingness to try probiotic engineering products with Likert Item. The average score of attitude and enthusiasm towards the safety of engineering probiotic products was 3.78 (Fig. 4a); The average score of the intention to try the engineered probiotic products was 4.02 (Fig. 4b). It shows that the public generally prefers to accept and try the probiotics of the project. After conducting ANOVA, we found that with the increase in age, people were more willing to use engineering probiotics to treat intestinal diseases and improve intestinal health, which was statistically significant.

Fig 4. Public attitudes toward engineered probiotics

5. Analysis and summary

In general, we must continue to pass on the health concept of sugar substitutes to the public, especially people with low educational backgrounds. At the same time, we need to cater to the taste preferences of young people and appropriately increase the taste of sugar substitutes through mixing. The public's confidence in engineering probiotic products is generally high, indicating that engineering probiotic products will have a good market foundation. At the same time, older people prefer to use engineering probiotic products to improve their health, suggesting that our target customers may be the middle-aged and elderly.

Acknowledgments:

At last, During the distribution of our public survey, we're glad to receive passionate responses from the following teams:

BME-Eindhoven
KCL_UK
Vilnius-Lithuania
Groningen
Navarra Biogalaxy

Thanks for all your support!