Study Shows Sweeteners and Sugar May Have Same Effect on Appetite

15 Dec 2016 --- A new study has shown that the body reacts to sugar, Stevia, monk fruit or aspartame, in the same way, stating that in the end, the four options have the same effect in terms of overall energy intake and the levels of glucose and insulin in the blood. The study was published in Springer Nature’s International Journal of Obesity.

The effect of four different drinks was tested: one contained sugar (sucrose), another the artificial non-nutritive sweetener aspartame and two others the natural NNS made from either the plants Stevia (Rebaudioside A) or monk fruit (Mogroside V).

In the short-term study, thirty healthy male study participants randomly consumed one of the four sweetened drinks on each of the different days of the investigation.

On each test day, participants ate a standardized breakfast, and by mid-morning received one test beverage to tide them over until lunch. An hour later they were provided with a lunchtime meal and asked to eat until comfortably full.

Their blood glucose and insulin concentrations were measured closely, while participants also kept a food diary of what they ate for the rest of the day.

The results showed there was no difference in the total daily energy intake across all four treatments, suggesting that that all participants consumed the same amount of energy (calories) during the course of a day. They either reduced meal intake after the sucrose-sweetened drink or ate significantly more at lunchtime and the rest of the day to compensate for the three calorie-free drink options.

Although participants felt slightly hungrier and looked forward more to eating something again when they drank non-nutritive sweetened beverages, they did not overindulge. They did however eat more following the NNS drinks than when they consumed the sugar-sweetened drink.

“The energy ‘saved’ from replacing sugar with non-nutritive sweetener was fully compensated for at subsequent meals in the current study, hence no difference in total daily energy intake was found between the four treatments,” explains lead author Siew Ling Tey of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.

“It appears that the source of non-nutritive sweeteners, whether artificial or natural, does not differ in its effects on energy intake, postprandial glucose and insulin,” says Tey.

However, a statement from the International Sweeteners Association (ISA) has disputed the research, saying, “The study by Tey et al cannot provide evidence to the claims suggesting that "The energy 'saved' from replacing sugar with non-nutritive sweetener was fully compensated for at subsequent meals.””

“A large number of randomised clinical trials published over the last three decades, conducted in many different groups of people, have shown that when consuming low calorie sweeteners preloads, participants do not compensate by eating more at either their lunch or dinner meal and report similar levels of satiety compared to when they consume the higher calorie sucrose preload.”

“Importantly, the limitations of this study including the short-term nature of the trial (one day) have to be taken into serious consideration in interpreting the results of the study.”

“The authors themselves note that “when the results are taken together, the evidence seems to suggest that the use of non-nutritive sweetener does not lead to overconsumption” and that “this cannot be confirmed in the current study due to the acute nature of the trial.””

“Furthermore, another important limitation of the study is the self-reported dietary data for subsequent meals after participants left the study site (after lunch). Interestingly, and in line with other studies, only partial energy compensation (22-32%) was observed at lunch time (the only meal that volunteers consumed under supervision at the study site), which actually shows that replacing sugar with low-calorie sweeteners led to reduced energy intake at the following meal.”

“Regarding the study finding that volunteers compensated the ‘saved’ energy by the end of the test day, this cannot be proved by this study outcomes as dietary intake was self-reported at home after lunch time, which is an important limitation of this study.”