Do Sugar Substitutes Make You Fat?

Today we'll take a brief break from politics to focus on an important study released earlier this week that suggested artificial sweeteners may actually contribute to obesity.

A number of newpaper articles reported on the study, conducted at Purdue University and published in the scientific journal Behavioral Neuroscience. See, for example, "Sugar Substitutes May Contribute To Weight Gain" in the Washington Post.

In the study, researchers fed rats with two types of sweetened yogurt: one with saccharin and one with natural sugar. The rats who ate the lower calorie yogurt sweetened with saccharin ate more food overall and gained more weight than those eating the higher calorie yogurt with natural sugar. From this, the researchers deduce that humans consuming foods (and diet drinks) sweetened artificially may inadvertently be making their weight situation worse, rather than better.

Of course, the folks at some artificial sweetener industry funded front group misleadingly called the Calorie Control Council immediately attacked the study, scoffing at its findings.

Now, we here at the Curmudgeon would be the first to say that you have to be very careful about a single animal study of just about any kind. Such studies can be suggestive of further research and help elaborate hypotheses, but they're hardly definitive.

Here, in particular, rats are not humans, saccharin is not the sugar substitute most people use, and the study conditions are far from those of people eating food in real life. That said, the study raises some provocative questions. It's pretty clear that the more we, as a society, have used sugar substitutes, the fatter we've gotten. It's also clear to anyone who's watched someone chug down a 50 ounce Big Gulp, or some similar oversize diet drink, that all this does is promote gluttony.

When we were kids, growing up in the '60's and 70's, no sane person would consume a soft drink larger than 12 ounces. Then, along came all kinds of diet sodas, and drink sizes started going up, up, up. Today, you'd have to beg a restaurant or fast food outlet to give you a 12-ounce drink--"please, just give me one of your little kid cups, I don't care what you charge me for it."

Likewise, sugar has been substituted for in all kinds of other foods, with no corresponding reduction in our collective waist sizes. Meanwhile, people eat more food today in an average meal than they did 30 years ago.

In short, the notion that artificial sweeteners are somehow screwing with our metabolism to make us eat more--not less--is hardly nuts.

The Curmudgeon long ago gave up artificial sweeteners, diet sodas and other reduced calorie foods. As a general rule, we drink water, and occasionally, de-caf coffee or tea, although we'll sometimes indulge ourselves in a delicious Classic Coke in the red can (or better yet, bottle).

We're not saying you should do likewise--you can wait for some additional research to be done. But we are saying that you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking that those artificial sweeteners are going to save the day.

All things in moderation remains eminently good advice.