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jedusorAnimals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship, leading to positive energy balance through increased food intake and/or diminished energy expenditure... We found that reducing the correlation between sweet taste and the caloric content of foods using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, and increased adiposity, as well as diminished caloric compensation and blunted thermic responses to sweet-tasting diets. These results suggest that consumption of products containing artificial sweeteners may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic, physiological processes.
--from the abstract of a study conducted in 2008
I've never liked artificial sweeteners; I think not being exposed to them much as a kid made me sensitive to them. I didn't pay much attention to the topic until I started in Dr. Kennedy's lab, where we use artificial sweeteners in our research. They're supposed to stimulate the same cascades as regular sugars, but they don't taste the same to me, and there's some weird crap going on with regards to pleasure responses. It's possible, based on that research, that I'm actually experiencing the same subjective perception but also a negative emotional response. Which would be awesome in terms of understanding the brain, but just adds to my aversion to artificial sweeteners in my own diet.
And now it looks like in addition to that, they screw with caloric homeostasis. I don't think that would be different in humans than it is in rats. And if that's the case, I can't think of a reason (apart from diabetes etc.) to eat artificially sweetened foods.
--from the abstract of a study conducted in 2008
I've never liked artificial sweeteners; I think not being exposed to them much as a kid made me sensitive to them. I didn't pay much attention to the topic until I started in Dr. Kennedy's lab, where we use artificial sweeteners in our research. They're supposed to stimulate the same cascades as regular sugars, but they don't taste the same to me, and there's some weird crap going on with regards to pleasure responses. It's possible, based on that research, that I'm actually experiencing the same subjective perception but also a negative emotional response. Which would be awesome in terms of understanding the brain, but just adds to my aversion to artificial sweeteners in my own diet.
And now it looks like in addition to that, they screw with caloric homeostasis. I don't think that would be different in humans than it is in rats. And if that's the case, I can't think of a reason (apart from diabetes etc.) to eat artificially sweetened foods.
