I saw this after I posted the other article and it seems like peple are really going against AS these days.

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Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts

Sugar Substitutes May Distort the Body's Natural Calorie Counter

By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
on Wednesday, June 30, 2004

June 30, 2004 -- Sugar substitutes may offer sweet treats for calorie-conscious dieters, but a new study shows that they may also play tricks on the body and sabotage weight-loss efforts.

Researchers say artificial sweeteners may interfere with the body's natural ability to count calories based on a food's sweetness and make people prone to overindulging in other sweet foods and beverages.

For example, drinking a diet soft drink rather than a sugary one at lunch may reduce the calorie count of the meal, but it may trick the body into thinking that other sweet items don't have as many calories either.

Researchers say the findings show that losing the ability to judge a food's calorie content based on its sweetness may be contributing to the dramatic rise in overweight and obesity rates in the U.S.

But don't ditch your diet drink yet.

"The message is not to give up your diet soda and go drink a regular soda," says researcher Susan Swithers, PhD, associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. "But when you do drink beverages you probably need to pay a little more attention to whether they have calories or not and what the consequences of that fact will be on the rest of your diet."

Sweetness Provides Calorie-Counting Clues

Swithers says that in the past, a food's sweetness provided valuable clues about its caloric content, and something sweet was usually a good source of energy.

"Before things like artificial sweeteners, these relationships would be very reliable," says Swithers. "Animals needed to find good sources of calories and needed to know whether eating something provided them with lots of calories."

"It's only been relatively recently that foods have been introduced that violate those kind of relationships, such as something very sweet that has no calories," Swithers tells WebMD.

According to researchers, the number of Americans who consume sugar-free, artificially sweetened products has grown from less than 70 million in 1987 to more than 160 million in 2000.

At the same time that more people are drinking and eating foods sweetened with low-calorie sweeteners, such as aspartame and saccharin, they're not getting any thinner. In contrast, more people are becoming overweight or obese.

That prompted researchers to test whether not being able to use sensory clues to predict the calorie content of foods might contribute to overeating and weight gain.

Artificial Sweeteners May Trick the Brain

In the study, published in the July issue of the International Journal of Obesity, two groups of rats were fed either a mix of high-calorie, sugar-sweetened, and low-calorie, artificially sweetened liquids; or sugar-sweetened liquids alone. This was fed to the rats in addition their regular diet. After 10 days, they were offered a high-calorie, chocolate-flavored snack.

The study showed that rats fed the mixed liquids ate more of their regular chow after the sweet snack than those who had been fed sugar-sweetened liquids alone.

Researchers say the results show that the experience of drinking artificially sweetened, low-calorie liquids had damaged the rats' natural ability to compensate for the calories in the snack.

Manipulating Food Can Derail Diets

Health psychologist Daniel C. Stettner, PhD, says damaging the body's natural ability to count calories based on food's sweetness is just one way in which food can be manipulated to change eating habits and contribute to obesity.

"We do more to manipulate food than just add artificial sweeteners. The food industry plays with the sugar, the fat, and the salt," Stettner tells WebMD. "It's like a shell game."

Stettner says that when manufacturers lower the sugar content in foods, they typically increase the fat or the salt content to compensate for any change in how it tastes or feels in the mouth. For example, sugar-free ice creams can be made higher in fat content.

"Sugar-free foods can still be calorie-dense, and that can mess up weight," says Stettner, who specializes in weight issues at Northpointe Health Center in Berkley, Mich.

Stettner says the body's natural calorie counter and sense of balance is also affected by genetics, environment, marketing, and physical activity level, which were not taken into account by this study.

"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."

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/89/100381.htm

Does this mean that there were not overweight people before artificial sweeteners were introduced?

Sorry, but I will never give up my diet coke and sugar free fudgecicles!!!!!!!

"The study showed that rats fed the mixed liquids ate more of their regular chow after the sweet snack than those who had been fed sugar-sweetened liquids alone.

Researchers say the results show that the experience of drinking artificially sweetened, low-calorie liquids had damaged the rats' natural ability to compensate for the calories in the snack."


Excuse me, am I missing something here? If your rat body is looking for a certain level of calories for maintenance, and you give it reduced calories via diet drinks for 10 days, would you not therefor eat more of your chow to get in those missing calories? I cannot see how they arrived at their convoluted conclusion. Please explain, someone.

Val

i'm confused as well. does this mean that unless i eat something that is really sweet (with sugar) my body doesn't know that it's eating something high in calories? or, conversely, does this mean that my body starts to equate sweet things as low calorie? neither one makes much sense. i don't think the author understood either. piss poor job of an explanation.
yeah, the fish, steak, pork, butter, cream, cheese, nuts, etc. (all "high-calorie", mostly sugar free, foods) i've been eating for the past 6 years has really messed up my weight. i lost forty pounds! how will i ever get that weight back on this lousy diet?!

Years ago, long before I discovered lc I read an article that showed that in SOME people, the mere suggestion of a high sugar meal could cause insulin spikes. The explaination was that the brain started to trigger insulin release to gear up for the high sugar treat.

The authors did emphasize that this is unusual, but by testing insulin and sugar levels prior to, during and after a high sugar treat showed this to be true in some. I don't remember where I saw the article, nor do I remember how scientific the testing was.....but it impressed me at the time, which is why I try to avoid "sweet" not just high sugar when i go back to induction levels.

They're idiots. They think the body doesn't regulate it's weight, when it does. That would get in the way of labeling obese people as morally inferior, and of marketing a whole manner of reduced cal products.

If you replace sugar calories (which by the by - BREAK many human bodies' capacity to use energy & regulate weight levels) with the equivalent of a "sweet tasting spice"... this is only going to be a boon for weight control. If you are healthy, eating unrestrained, and at a weight your body thinks is healthy then duh yes you are going to eat to maintain the weight by eating more food to make up for the lost sugar. If not eating the sugar means your metabolism works better, reducing an unhealthfully high weight may be the outcome. Either way eating sugar is still not a good idea since the odds are it may raise weight plus it is an inferior source of caloric energy due to a complete lack of nutrition.,

Interesting articlle, URBANZERO. All I know is that I feel so much better when I do not consume sugar alcohols. I am very sensitive to craving triggers and sugar alcohols are a real problem for me. I prefer all natural herbal stevia.

I think sugar alcohols are a different animal that other artificial sweeteners. Most SA's give almost everyone gas and bloating. However, splenda and aspartame don't.

Sugar alcohols are natural sweeteners.

The difference with sugar alcohols is that most are partially metabolized. Making them a carb source, albeit reduced as compared to fully metabolized sources.

The fact that they cause gas, I see as a plus. It definitely keeps me from over-indulging. One good sugar-alcohol binge is enough to teach you a lesson that is well remembered.

The bulking agents in the artificial sweeteners, may have some similar effect. Remember that the companies choose a small portion sizer so they can round down to zero. When you use a cup of Splenda in a cheesecake recipe, I don't think the carb content is zero.

Definitely not 0. There's 24 grams of carbs in a cup of splenda, the pourable kind. That's why I like to use the liquid sort.