This is an epidemiological study, so you have to be careful about how you interpret it. They did try to account for general dietary intake via a questionnaire, but it can be hard to get accurate data this way. I still feel that the underlying cause here is that people who want to lose fat tend to take in more artificial sweeteners, and not that artificial sweeteners cause people to put on more fat.
Epidemiological studies are usually the only thing we can go by, though, because RCTs are hard to apply in many instances.
Edit: I also should mention that epidemiological studies are useful. Just that they may require interpretation and are not usually a smoking gun by themselves.
Weight gain or loss is just a numbers game of calories in vs calories out. Literally every diet that actually works boils down to a caloric deficit; and those that don’t work are because they fail to cross that line.
Any time you substitute something high calorie for low, it’s a step toward weight loss. So, artificial sweeteners (at least the zero calorie kinds like sucralose, aspartame, etc; not sure if high calorie sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup are considered “artificial” but it sure as fuck ain’t natural) are extremely useful as a weight loss tool.
The study linked could replace artificial sweeteners with almost any weight loss tool and find the same result. “Study links people who sign up for an initial gym membership to increased body fat adipose tissue volume!!” …like, no shit Sherlock, they’re there to lose it.
Be careful not to draw the wrong conclusion from a misleading headline.
But satiety is very complex, and it’s possible that sweetener replacements make people hungrier in the long run, leading to weight gain.
IIRC that was a popular opinion about artificial sweeteners for a while because pigs are raised on food with sweeteners, to make them eat more. That doesn’t mean sweeteners make you hungrier though, just that pigs like to eat sweet things so they eat more of it.
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It’s been a while but my most recent information was that this correlation couldn’t be confirmed. Sorry, can’t provide sources, just what I remember from a while back, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.
TIL I’m a pig
Today we unite, my pig sibling!
Supposedly the study already accounted for that (amount and quality of food eaten).
Satiety is helpful in managing the “calories in” half of weight loss, but it’s not an absolute must. Knowing when it’s safe to ignore hunger and doing so when you’ve already used up you’re caloric budget for the day is a huge part of successful weight loss. Basically same spiel with the “calories out” end. Working out can be fun (which is helpful because it makes you want to do it), but a lot of times it’s not - but if you want to lose weight, you do it anyway.
“This study showed that habitual, long-term intake of total and individual artificial sweetener intakes are related to greater volumes of adipose tissue, commonly known as body fat,” said Brian Steffen, PhD, MSCR, a professor in the Department of Surgery at the U of M Medical School and co-investigator on the funded grant. “This was found even after accounting for other factors, including how much a person eats or the quality of one’s diet.”
That’s what makes this study so interesting.
Interesting, but also suspicious. “How much a person eats and the quality of their diet” is pretty much the entirety of “calories in”, so if artificial sweeteners are sabotaging weight loss, it’ll be on the “calories out” end, which is where metabolism and exercise come into play… which is absolutely a part of the equation that can be influenced, but not the part that sweeteners are typically involved in.
I think it is much more likely that the way a human being metabolizes food is different then what happens in bomb calorimeter and trying to draw conclusions based on said device is not very helpful to understanding human physiology, but then again i am just some schmuck on the interwebs and i dont even play a scientist on tv
I am a schmuck on the interwebs who went to school for microbiology and I can say for certain that the human body does not violate the 1st law of thermodynamics. Calorie deficit = your body must free up stored energy (in fat) to have enough energy to continue breathing = weight loss. Unless your body is able to create sustainable free energy out of a vacuum or unless you have a horrible genetic disorder that breaks down your bones for energy or unless you are dead
Sure, but wouldn’t the calorimeter’s reading still be the theoretical maximum since it’s based on thermodynamics? In other words, an inefficient metabolism may see a net gain of fewer calories, but it shouldn’t ever see greater.
I’ve not used a calorimeter, but my understanding is that is just measures heat energy from burning things. Things like sucralose and aspertame likely WOULD read as caloric in that kind of measurement, because they contain chemical energy. The reason those sweeteners read as 0 in nutrition labels is because of how we metabolize food. Or in this case, how we don’t: we can’t digest sucralose and similar sweeteners. It goes in, your tongue says “yay!” and you poop it out.
Also a schmuck on interweb; but healthcare is my area of expertise, so I’ve got a handful of college level human anatomy & physiology, nutrition, and microbiology courses to draw from here. I was also a fatass who wanted to join the military back in the day, which required losing a lot of weight - decided to approach it as scientifically as possible (there’s a LOT of fad misinformation surrounding weightloss), and I can’t complain about the results.
They read as zero due to rounding. In packet form they’re almost always cut with dextrose/maltodextrin (which is definitely not zero-calorie).
What!? That makes no sense.
They saw an association between sweetener intake and change in fat over 25 years. Not relative to the population, relative to their past selves. How would a weight loss tool increasing your body fat over 25 years be obvious?
That’s my point - it makes no sense. They’re either overlooking something, or artificials have some influence on the calories out side of weight loss that we don’t know about.
They have a pretty detailed discussion section. The main hypothesis they support, based on plenty of other evidence, is that these drugs increase appetite. They motivate you to eat more calories, even though they contain fewer calories themselves.
Could not agree more. They over complicated weight loss and what you have to do so badly now. Keto, Shmeeto, No carb, All carb, fasting, starving, whatever. Just STOP. Exercise regularly & use like an 80/20 method where 80% of the time you eat quality, whole foods. Keep portions within reason. Splurge where applicable. Exercise often. There, DONE. And yes, you can even eat some sugar and it wont kill you, LOL.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
However, the study found no significant association between the artificial sweetener sucralose and these measures of fat volume.
“This study showed that habitual, long-term intake of total and individual artificial sweetener intakes are related to greater volumes of adipose tissue, commonly known as body fat,” said Brian Steffen, PhD, MSCR, a professor in the Department of Surgery at the U of M Medical School and co-investigator on the funded grant.
“This was found even after accounting for other factors, including how much a person eats or the quality of one’s diet.”
Based on their results, the researchers recommend considering alternative approaches, as long-term artificial sweetener consumption may have potential health consequences.
The researchers emphasize the need for more studies to better understand the connection between artificial sweetener intake and increased body fat.
Further research is warranted to explore the underlying mechanisms and gain clearer insights into how dietary habits affect metabolic health.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I just created the summary! You can find it at https://lemmings.world/comment/921126.
Did they control for the fact that being overweight can be a cause to switch from sugar to sweeteners?
Let me ask for a minute: What angle does this come from? Who funded the study? Sometimes you have to ask yourself these questions because someone may have an axe to grind or money to make by conducting these studies. Just saying…
Oh yeah, it’s funded by big natural sugar… eye roll
They’re asking a valid question everyone should have in the back of their minds when reading study results, no need to eye roll. It’s not some crazy conspiracy theory that corporations will happily fund studies in the hopes of cherry picking results in their favor. It’s bad science and it happens all the time unfortunately. Sometimes bad science makes it into good journals, and it can take years to figure out that the study was flawed due to bias.
I was just reading this morning about the immunologist Jacques Benveniste who got his study published in Nature, he claimed that water had memory and that antibodies imprinted on diluted water. It was such a bold claim that it made international news and quacks everywhere ran with it. It took some investigation to determine the scientists Benveniste was working with were paid off by a company that sold homeopathic products. There’s also the douche who got the MMR vaccine linked to autism. Despite the study being debunked, it’s an idea that pervades mom groups across the globe and has resulted in a resurgence of measles that never had to happen.
Nope, this is definitely an eye roll moment.
Are you not aware that “big sugar” is a massive offender of cherry picking data and funding studies that make their competition look bad? It’s a large contributor to the obesity problems of the Western world
You can literally look at the study to find out who is funding it.
Ah ha! I don’t know why you were down-voted here because this explains a lot. One must always consider the source of the research funding. It’s best to have as independent and objective research as possible. Clearly Big Sugar is concerned about the loss of revenue from the recent improvements in taste and mouth feel of artificial sweeteners.
this study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute under grant numbers R21 HL135300 and R01 HL150053, as well as by contracts from the NIH/NHLBI funding the four field centers.
It says right on the study how it was funded, that guy was being sarcastic and rude which is why he was downvoted. If there is a bias in this study, it’s not immediately apparent from the funding.
Obviously I missed the sarcasm. Yikes. Shame on me. 🙃
This study is bogus.
Ive been using splenda and stevia for years now, and I would definitely say they have helped me with losing weight, combined wirh full on avoiding sugar and sugary foods. Steered clear of diet coke recently due to aspertame, but even that didn’t lead to weight gain much more than regular coke did.
Fat people try to list weight, more at 11
I wonder if the diet soda studies are related to this?
For instance, diet Coke intake is supposed to correlate with very bad health outcomes.
Edit: downvoted for a question in a Science community? Do better, people.
Recent WHO recommendations say that artificial sweeteners are not useful for weight loss, but used in moderation they are not terribly unsafe as far as current studies indicate. All the stuff saying artificial sweeteners are super scary and bad is just that, scare tactics. Or it takes a gigantic amount to be bad for you, but if you replace that amount of artificial sweetener with sugar then the sugar is just as bad or worse. Better just to avoid both.
I try to avoid single studies or articles about anything, but rather look to larger recommendations from WHO or other agencies that are less likely to be influenced by $$$. Looking at a single article or study is basically meaningless. Unless you’re Joe Rogan and you’re paid to sell everyone a meat eater diet or Dr. Oz with whatever his garbage of the month is.
My household has never has soda.
Is it the diet Coke or the lifestyle of the person who consumes it in significant quantities?
I’ve noticed that during healthier times of my life when I’m experience less stress, I have no interest in junk food or soda. When I get stressed and I’m not sleeping as well, I get more cravings and find myself making unhealthier choices for the little satisfying bump a dose of sweet/salty/fatty snack and a caffeinated soda provide. Obviously living a stressful life is unhealthy as a baseline.
Could it be that people who are already predisposed to getting overweight try to avoid it by diet drinks, but fail because it’s genetics and they take more calories on average? Correlation=/=Causation?
I mostly agree with your point, just substitute “genetics” for the actual array of reasons why we have an obesity epidemic. Environment, upbringing, emotional state, level of education, financial resources, access to healthy food, sedentary lifestyle, disordered eating habits, trauma, medications, hormonal imbalances, physical and mental health, etc.
It’s common sense that people trying to lose weight are more likely to reach for non-caloric products, and with other studies showing that most people who lose weight will gain it back within 5-10 years, it’s makes this study’s results obvious and proves nothing new unfortunately. Sweeteners very well could be an independent cause of weight gain, but until they account for all of the confounding factors that influence why people gain and lose weight, they won’t be able to determine its true role in the matter.
Wanted to keep it short, guy above said it right
