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Study links long-term artificial sweetener intake to increased body fat adipose tissue volume
(www.sciencedaily.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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