Which should you choose for sweetening your food – sugar or artificial sweeteners? Which sweetener is better? Is any of them “better” at all?
In an experiment scientists gave rats a predetermined amount of yogurt with saccharin and another group of rats – the same amount of yogurt with glucose (1). Not only did the rats in the saccharine group gain more weight, compared to the glucose group, but they also showed an impaired caloric compensation. In simple terms that means that the rats on saccharin compensated the lack of calories that should normally come with the taste of sweet with extra calories, which subsequently lead to weight gain.
If you think about it when you eat an apple (apples are sweet) the body knows that with the taste of sweet there are calories coming. Your energy expenditure increases and your need to provide calories should go down. Apparently not with artificial sweeteners. It’s quite possible that the brain doesn’t register the “sweet” calories coming in and it makes you find these extra calories. The only problem is that (just like rats) you overcompensate for the calories that didn’t enter the body with the artificial sweetener.
Scientists observed the same results when they gave rats yogurt sweetened with AceK (acesulfame potasssium), and also when they replaced yogurt with other types of food but kept the artificial sweetener. The animals always gained weight.
Moreover, when the artificial sweetener was replaced with sugar (glucose) the weight gain didn’t go away. And, what’s even more, when the scientists started the animals on a yogurt and glucose diet, but then switched them to yogurt and saccharin the animals gained more weight!
So, sugar or artificial sweeteners?
I think by now you’d know the answer: Neither!
If you need more, consider this. In a very recent study (Appetite journal, Jan. 2013) researchers fed one group of rats with yogurt and sucrose (sugar), another with yogurt with saccharin, and a third group with yogurt and aspartame. All animals were restricted on how much they can exercise and all ate the same calories from their sweetened yogurts and chow (2). All animals, fed artificial sweeteners gained weight. The rats fed sugar didn’t. The scientists concluded in their paper that the weight gain in the artificial sweetener-fed animals was unrelated to calorie intake.
This, I think, reinforces what we learned from the first study. It also allows for a speculation of this sort: sucrose (table sugar) is perhaps a lot safer than high intensity artificial sweeteners, such as saccharin and aspartame.
So, do you sweeten your yogurt or not? I’d say, not, but I also know that you are a human just like me and you want to feel like you are a part of the human race.. at least once in a while. Sugar or artificial sweeteners? If you have to choose between artificial sweeteners and sugar then go with sugar! It won’t kill you… and it appears it won’t make you fatter.
However, I don’t even see why you should limit yourself only with these choices. There are other safe alternatives to high-intensity artificial sweeteners… and to old-fashioned table sugar as well. One of them is stevia. I personally use it on a daily basis. Because of this I did a thorough research on the effects of stevia consumption in its quality as a high-intensity natural sweetener. Read my article “Is Stevia Safe” to learn what I found.
2 Responses
What about Natural sweeteners such as Stevia?
I think that by forcing the choice to those two here, you are making the impression to consumers that they need to choose the lesser of two evils when in fact they have other good and healthier alternatives.
You are correct that my article can be interpreted that way – “sugar or artificial sweeteners… you should choose the lesser evil”. I added a paragraph at the end that mentions stevia as another alternative to sugar and I also liked it to my well-researched article on stevia.