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Consuming diet and sugar-free processed foods may not be as healthy for you as you think after Australian researchers showed artificial sweeteners can actually make you eat more.
Previous research has shown an association between people who consume artificial sweeteners and higher food intake, despite them still being proscribed by doctors to help treat obesity, however, the reasons why remained unclear.
Answering the dilemma in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism, researchers at the University of Sydney showed the brain sensed both sweetness and energy intake after comparing results between differing controlled diets of fruit flies.
Essentially, one group was given healthy food, the other was given food with artificial sweetener. When the second group was given naturally sweetened food, the researchers found they consumed 30 percent more calories compared to the control.
Lead researcher from the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Greg Neely said this can all be linked to the brain which integrates the sweet sensation with energy content.
"When sweetness versus energy is out of balance for a period of time, the brain recalibrates and increase total calories consumed," Neely said in a statement.
"When we investigated why animals were eating more even though they had enough calories, we found that chronic consumption of this artificial sweetener actually increases the sweet intensity of real nutritive sugar, and then this increases the animal's overall motivation to eat more food."
Essentially, the brain tells the animal it hasn't eaten enough energy after consuming artificially sweetened food, results that were replicated in mice to prove the mammals will experience similar effects.
"These findings further reinforce the idea that 'sugar-free' varieties of processed food and drink may not be as inert as we anticipated,"Professor Herbert Herzog from the Garvin Institute for Medical Research said.
"Artificial sweeteners can actually change how animals perceive the sweetness of their food, with a discrepancy between sweetness and energy levels prompting an increase in caloric consumption."
The researchers also found the artificial sweeteners promoted hyperactivity, insomnia and decreased sleep quality, behaviours that are consistent with mild starvation or a fasting state, similar to observations previously reported in human studies.
But there is good news for those trying to shed those unwanted pounds. The impact of the artificial sweeteners was reversible, with responses of the flies going back to normal within three days.
(APD)
