Artificial Sweeteners

How Artificial Sweeteners May Cause Us to Eat More

Like a freshly cracked diet soda, suspicions have been fizzing away for years that artificial sweeteners may not be the best way to slim down

By Bret Stetka on July 12, 201

A vast body of research suggests that sugar substitutes, despite having far fewer calories than sugar itself, can wreak various forms of metabolic havoc such as upping diabetes risk and—perhaps paradoxically—causing weight gain in the long term. A new study published Tuesday in Cell Metabolism suggests that artificial sweeteners mimic a starvation state in the brain, causing some organisms to seek energy by eating more food.In the study—a collaboration between researchers from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Center and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research—fruit flies were fed either a diet of yeast and sucrose or one with the synthetic sweetener sucralose, used in a variety of low-calorie foods. Flies fed the sugar-free diet for five or more days consumed 30 percent more calories than those on sugar. When sucralose was removed from their diet, calorie consumption in the formerly sugar-free group fell back to normal./.../