Posted on 07/08/2004 9:33:06 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Rats fed artificial sweeteners ate three times the calories of rats given sugar, a finding the study's authors said suggests sugar-free foods may play a role in the nation's obesity epidemic.
Other scientists, however, dismissed that conclusion, saying studies on people don't indicate that. One researcher called the rat study nonsense.
The experiment by Purdue University researchers appears in the July issue of the International Journal of Obesity. The scientists said their rodent findings could help explain why Americans have grown fatter over the past two decades even as the nation's consumption of artificially sweetened sodas and snack foods has soared.
They contend that artificial sweeteners could be interfering with people's natural ability to regulate how much they eat by distinguishing between high- and low- calorie sweets.
As part of their study, they fed two groups of rats sweet-flavored liquids for 10 days. One group got only sugar-sweetened liquids, while the other was fed liquids sweetened by both sugar and saccharin.
After the 10 days, both groups of rats were given a sugary, chocolate-flavored snack and regular rat chow.
Both groups of rats ate about the same amount of the chocolate snack. But the rats fed both sugar and saccharin ate three times the calories of the rat chow than the rats fed only the sugar-sweetened drink.
Susan Swithers, an associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue, said the findings suggest the rats given the saccharin-sweetened drink ate more rat chow because they experienced an inconsistent relationship between sweet taste and calories.
That, in turn, could confound their natural ability to keep track of calories.
"Consuming artificially sweetened products may interfere with one of the automatic processes our bodies use to regulate calorie intake," said Swithers, the study's co-author.
Adam Drewnowski, director of nutritional sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, said that whatever caused the rats to overeat is unclear and could have been caused by something other than the sugar-free liquid they were fed. He said the rat results have no bearing on human research.
"They're extrapolating and saying that humans may not be adjusting to the artificial sweeteners because they're expecting calories and the calories are not coming in. I just think this is nonsense," he said.
Drewnowski said a 1994 French study he helped direct compared people given yogurt artificially sweetened with aspartame with people who ate yogurt sweetened with sugar. The study found no differences in eating behavior between the two groups.
Terry Davidson, a Purdue professor of psychological sciences, said the team's findings involving saccharin cannot be extended to more commonly used artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose, sold as Splenda.
G. Harvey Anderson, a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the Purdue research, said its findings could be explained by the fact that rats like the taste of saccharin.
He said the rats who overate could have favored the saccharin-flavored drink and then compensated for its lack of calories by eating more rat chow. "I just find this data hard to interpret," Anderson said.
Stevia
vile nasty little critters! ;)
Like I said, the capacity many of us have to delude ourselves is infinite. I rest my case.
What this country needs is a heartier strain of lab rats!
This study used saccharine, not aspartame, FWIW.
I wonder if the sugar fed rats would have produced the same results with corn syrup sweetened liquids.
I'm with you on that one! I drink water almost exclusively, except for my morning coffee (I do use a packet of splenda in that though - my one beverage weakness!). I'd like to break the fam of the artificially sweetened tea, but the unsweetened just sat in the fridge for days. With 7 kids, I need to pick my battles carefully!
So I just imagined I've lost 120 pounds in the last 6 months?
I didn't know this, this is helpful to me. Do you have any hints where I could find a link ?
What really irks me are the people who are too fat to walk in the grocery wheeling around on those motorized carts loading their baskets down with soft drinks and junk food.
You are correct. I'm trying to regulate my unregulatable diabetic son, and cutting out artificial sweetners is part of the process. (He can still make small amounts of insulin.) The sweet taste does cause people to make insulin and (I would think) this would cause hypoglycemia in some. One symptom of hypoglycemia is incredible hunger. It would make sense to me that these folks would gain weight.
OMG!!! Not THIS again!!
About every 10 years, somebody drags this flawed "study" out in an attempt to get artificial sweeteners banned.
Well, here are some anecdotal "facts" from my own research on this issue:
1) I am a type II diabetic, thanks to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam.
2) Artificial sweeteners are the only ones I can use.
3) My weight is neither a product of nor associated with artificial sweetener usage; it has to do with the food I eat, NOT the artificial sweeteners I use.
So the bottom line is that this study was bunkem when it was first conducted (I didn't waste my time reading the article; the last time I read this "study" it was revealed that they fed the rats something like 800 times the normal daily dose of artificial sweetener) and it is STILL bunkem.
The other result of this "study" is that artificial sweeteners cause cancer. That part is probably true. When you force 800 times the normal daily dose of ANYTHING into your body, you're probably going to develop cancer. Living tissue resents being abused that way.
Agreed.
Quite a studly dog you have on your profile page. He has good-looking offspring too!
Those are fine looking dogs.
"Well now we've got a bunch of fat rats...what should we do...Atkins?"
No, just stop electing them.
WE aren't electing the fat 'rats. I wish everyone would wise up and quit electing them. They are causing today's Plague.
"One symptom of hypoglycemia is incredible hunger."
Exactly my thinking.
I've never liked artificial sweeteners because of their taste, and sugar is only 16 calories per teaspoon, so what's the big deal?
I am not a conspiracy kind of guy, but I am certain that a lot of pressure was put on the researchers to keep their findings quiet.
Never heard of Atkins, have you?
And do you often inspect fat people's lunches? Do you peek in their shopping baskets too?
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