Low-Calorie Sweetener Use and Risk of Abdominal Obesity Among Older Adults
journals.plos.org
journals.plos.org
This is more of a "huh, someone should do additional research" paper than anything conclusive.
> In other words, an outcome assessed at visit v was regressed on low-calorie sweetener history up to the visit prior to outcome assessment to rule out reverse causality. In Model 2, outcomes at visit v were regressed on low-calorie sweetener use history through visit v-1, hence minimizing reverse causality.
I've lost 60 pounds this year drinking huge amounts of diet soda. I've made more progress than when I tried cutting out sweeteners entirely.
There's a whole lot more going on with these issues than cell cultures and it's really counterproductive to pull random science out of a hat and say it proves your point. It only drives distrust in the whole concept of scientific reasoning.
Low calorie sweeteners are still a better option than sucrose with respect to flavoring.
In terms of annecdata, I've been trying to control my father's eating habits for years now (due to his numerous heart attacks and double bypass), and while I've not been completely successful, everything about my father's health has improved since he switched to diet pepsi from regular pepsi and since I got him to stop buying sugar for his coffee, convincing him to go with Stevia instead.
He still sneaks junk food, but that's not something that has changed. His blood sugar has decreased and his joint pains have improved.
To a certain extent, studies like this that make recommendations against recommendations seem irresponsible.
The fact that this is a longitudinal study lets us say that not only is heavier use of low calorie sweeteners tied to being fat, it is correlated with getting fatter faster. That's an important point that only longitudinal studies can verify.
However without being able to control people's diet, we don't know which way causation goes. Do low calorie sweeteners cause people to gain weight faster? Or does having a tendency towards gaining weight cause people to use low calorie sweeteners? And if it is a cause, why that would be.
It seems overwhelmingly likely that the causality goes the other way, though.
What would be interesting is if people who replaced the calories they ate that came from sugar with artificial sweeteners that are effectively no calorie and still had a greater increase in stored mass.
That said; the chance of a properly controlled food study is astronomical as you’d have to control people’s diets in near totality, for a large enough sample size, across years, which no one would agree to unless you planned to cover or subsidize their food costs over that time.
There has been data like this out there for ages.
The fatalist claim being: well, one would've just eaten that much anyway, so what's the difference?
We're humans. Not wanting to eat bitter food all the time is natural and should not be faulted. Losing weight shouldn't have to be a strenuous ascetic chore, so choosing to consume something sweet isn't the mental failing; the mental failing is choosing to choose something calorically and macro-nutritionally incorrect for one's body recomposition goals.
Could it be that not eating sugar isn't so much of a strenuous ascetic chore, but rather it's the reduction in sugar intake which is particularly (albeit temporarily) awkward?
One doesn't need to have an addiction to sweet things to want to enjoy sweet things every once in a while, though I admit that "addictions" to sweet things exist (namely my father, whom I have a hard time breaking him away from that addiction).
The point was mainly that there is a certain brand of health and fitness that says one must suffer / become a stoic ascetic in order to make progress, and it's this brand of health and fitness that is counter productive. Yes, maybe it works for many people, but it doesn't work for everyone.
I'm perfectly happy living a rather Spartan life; my 70 year old father is not and it's very difficult to change his stubborn mind.
Another way of putting it is that if you say that the only way to health and fitness is to climb over this 50 ft. wall, then you're going to get far fewer people actually putting in the effort to do so. Artificial Sweeteners are the large hand holds on the climbing wall, before they're ready to switch over.
And yes, if your goal is body recomposition, then macronutrition and caloric intake is far more important than this "artificial sweeteners make you fatter" voodoo magic nonsense.
These data suggest that low-calorie sweetener consumption may deleteriously affect visceral fat deposition, a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease and mortality.
Mechanisms for the association between low-calorie sweetener use and progressively rising prevalence of abdominal obesity remain unknown. One potential explanation derives from the physiology of the brain food reward system.
Therefore, individuals who consume low-calorie sweeteners may compensate by over-eating in order to experience the expected satiety. Another possible mechanism may involve the gut microbiome.
[1] https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=lactulose+inulin+...
https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/xylitol-toxicity-in-d...
It doesn't take much of a response to accumulate significant fat over the years, when you're constantly consuming the stuff.
But artificial sweeteners do not increase blood glucose levels, which are also linked to increased appetite. For me personally, avoiding sugar is a surefire way to decrease my appetite overall. It's so effective it almost seems like magic.
> ...users consumed lower amounts of fructose and higher amounts of caffeine than non-users, but had similar diet quality.
I grew up eating “normal” foods and drinking non-diet soda.
I am an average-sized guy. I fell in love with a sweetheart of a woman that was around 300lbs. I married her. She’s now less than half that.
I eat what she eats. Diet, sugar-free everything. After a few years of tolerating it, I prefer it. Normal soda tastes like cough syrup, to me. Cake and donuts make me nauseated. I don’t crave sugar, at all.
Also, ketchup has a shit ton of sugar in it, for the record. (I know this, because we use sugar-free ketchup.)
Do with this anecdotal informaton what you will; but as someone who has fully transitioned to artificial sweeteners - I can’t say that my lived experience lines up with your claims.
> The health effects of LCS are inconclusive, with research showing mixed findings.