Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose may actually promote obesity and weight gain

Diabetes Factor ^ | Friday, January 28, 2005

[jb6]

Groundbreaking new research published in the International Journal of Obesity reveals that artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose -- precisely the kinds of chemical sweeteners found in diet soft drinks or many low-carb food products -- may actually promote obesity by tricking the body into thinking that sweet-tasting foods and drinks don't contain as many calories as they really do.

In the experiments, rats who were fed artificially-sweetened foods tended to overeat foods containing real sweeteners, causing them to gain weight. In humans, it's the same result: drink diet soft drinks and consume enough foods made with artificial sweeteners, and you'll very likely overeat the sweets when the real thing comes along: apple pie, cookies, cake, ice cream, and so on.

This result is rather obvious, come to think of it: I don't recall ever seeing a thin person buying a twelve-pack of diet Pepsi at the grocery store. The people you see buying diet soft drinks are inevitably overweight or obese. Obviously, if diet soft drinks made people thin, you'd see lots of thin people buying them, right? It's common sense.

Further, all the thin people I know (including myself) wouldn't touch diet soft drinks, nor regular soft drinks. In fact, soft drinks are simply off the menu for anyone concerned with their health. They tend to be consumed by lower-income, lower-intelligence people who are more prone to advertiser influence and can't think for themselves.

But the real problem with artificial sweeteners today is their skyrocketing use in low-carb foods: Sucralose is used in practically every low-carb food bar, drink, snack, recipe or meal. And Sucralose very likely has the same effect as aspartame in this case: it trains your body to overconsume genuine refined carbohydrates when you encounter them.

[IMRight]

Man.... you had to see that coming.

[ScottFromSpokane]

An amazing combination of arrogance and stupidity.

[k2blader]

Aspartame causes headaches too.

[farmfriend]

Shoot, I didn't need a study to tell me that.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>...it trains your body to overconsume genuine refined carbohydrates when you encounter them.

Only if you're stupid. Personal control. Read labels. Eat less. Exercise more. Loose weight.

[mewzilla]

-- may actually promote obesity by tricking the body into thinking that sweet-tasting foods and drinks don't contain as many calories as they really do.

Er, isn't this why we have brains?

[pepperdog]

"all the thin people I know (including myself) wouldn't touch diet soft drinks, nor regular soft drinks. In fact, soft drinks are simply off the menu for anyone concerned with their health. They tend to be consumed by lower-income, lower-intelligence people"

This person may not be full of fat or sugar but is definitely full of phooey!

[Bommer]

I beileve it. How many thin people do you see drinking diet cokes?

[NorCalRepub]

don't know if sucralose is that bad but I've studied supplements and nutrition for years and you are right. Aspartame is an excito-toxin and can really cause chaos in the brain after heavy use for many many years. don't quote me here but I believe it metabolizes into aspartic acid and wood alcohol or something like that.........it is the worst of the lot

[DB]

"They tend to be consumed by lower-income, lower-intelligence people who are more prone to advertiser influence and can't think for themselves."

And you deduced this from the fact that you don't consume them yourself? Have any other "evidence" of your claim?

[ScottM1968]

There is an effect aspartame has that is a bit unusual. It causes an elevation in insulin levels. This then causes more calories to be shunted to muscles first followed by fat for storage.

I am not aware of this effect with sucralose (Splenda), acesulfame potassium, or saccharin. However, all of the above sweeteners are loaded onto either maltodextrin or dextrose (which are carbohydrate sources) to provide "bulk" (these sweeteners are 200+ times sweeter than sugar by volume in their natural state). So we are still ingesting carbs and other calories as we eat, but just not eating as many simple sugar grams.

Interestingly, diet soda has no calories, so when having NutraSweet-sweetened beverages without some sort of caloric food, you will feel like you need to eat a bit of something. But even this is countered by the caffeine which can serve to curb hunger.

I don't know if I would agree with the article on all points, but it makes some good points.

But I do see thin people drinking diet sodas where I live.

[ThinkPlease]

Me, 6',160.

[k2blader]

Thank you for the scientific confirmation. I had been basing my opinion on feedback from friends and family. I try not to touch the stuff. And besides, plain ol' sugar tastes better. :-)

[Bommer]

Damn dude! why drink diet? Only real coke will kill a tapeworm like that! You need to start drinking Lard Cola!

[xm177e2]

This result is rather obvious, come to think of it: I don't recall ever seeing a thin person buying a twelve-pack of diet Pepsi at the grocery store. The people you see buying diet soft drinks are inevitably overweight or obese. Obviously, if diet soft drinks made people thin, you'd see lots of thin people buying them, right? It's common sense.

Boy, I never see fat people wearing bikinis, either. Obviously, bikinis make people thing. It's common sense, right?

[NorCalRepub]

plus like you said....too much caffeine can create a cortisol induced fat storage

[CarryaBigStick]

Oh Jeez! What next?

[mewzilla]

I beileve it. How many thin people do you see drinking diet cokes?

Well, I do :) But I don't order a Quarterpounder and fries with it.

[ScottM1968]

The WebMD article the above author read from states this:

"So many factors contribute to obesity," says Stettner. Although artificial sweeteners may alter the eating behavior of rats, he says the same principle may not necessarily apply to humans.

Swithers says that many types of learning processes translate from rats to humans, but she acknowledges that the loss of the ability to judge the calorie content of sweet foods is probably just one of the contributors to the rise in overweight and obesity.

However, she says humans also have a distinct advantage over rats when it comes to controlling how many calories they put into their body.

"Rats can't read the labels, but we can," says Swithers. "We have to take that extra step of reading the labels or asking how many calories are in there. That may be enough so that we can compensate for those sweet calories."

(This link is shown further down on the page to Diabetes Factor.)

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/89/100381.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_1n_01