Study links long-term artificial sweetener intake to increased body fat adipose tissue volume
Study links long-term artificial sweetener intake to increased body fat adipose tissue volume
Researchers studied the relationship between dietary intake and cardiovascular disease risk factors.
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Weight gain or loss is just a numbers game of calories in vs calories out. Literally every diet that actually works boils down to a caloric deficit; and those that don't work are because they fail to cross that line.
Any time you substitute something high calorie for low, it's a step toward weight loss. So, artificial sweeteners (at least the zero calorie kinds like sucralose, aspartame, etc; not sure if high calorie sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup are considered "artificial" but it sure as fuck ain't natural) are extremely useful as a weight loss tool.
The study linked could replace artificial sweeteners with almost any weight loss tool and find the same result. "Study links people who sign up for an initial gym membership to increased body fat adipose tissue volume!!" ...like, no shit Sherlock, they're there to lose it.
Be careful not to draw the wrong conclusion from a misleading headline.
But satiety is very complex, and it's possible that sweetener replacements make people hungrier in the long run, leading to weight gain.
IIRC that was a popular opinion about artificial sweeteners for a while because pigs are raised on food with sweeteners, to make them eat more. That doesn't mean sweeteners make you hungrier though, just that pigs like to eat sweet things so they eat more of it.
TIL I'm a pig
Today we unite, my pig sibling!
Supposedly the study already accounted for that (amount and quality of food eaten).
Satiety is helpful in managing the "calories in" half of weight loss, but it's not an absolute must. Knowing when it's safe to ignore hunger and doing so when you've already used up you're caloric budget for the day is a huge part of successful weight loss. Basically same spiel with the "calories out" end. Working out can be fun (which is helpful because it makes you want to do it), but a lot of times it's not - but if you want to lose weight, you do it anyway.
"This study showed that habitual, long-term intake of total and individual artificial sweetener intakes are related to greater volumes of adipose tissue, commonly known as body fat," said Brian Steffen, PhD, MSCR, a professor in the Department of Surgery at the U of M Medical School and co-investigator on the funded grant. "This was found even after accounting for other factors, including how much a person eats or the quality of one's diet."
That's what makes this study so interesting.
Interesting, but also suspicious. "How much a person eats and the quality of their diet" is pretty much the entirety of "calories in", so if artificial sweeteners are sabotaging weight loss, it'll be on the "calories out" end, which is where metabolism and exercise come into play... which is absolutely a part of the equation that can be influenced, but not the part that sweeteners are typically involved in.
I think it is much more likely that the way a human being metabolizes food is different then what happens in bomb calorimeter and trying to draw conclusions based on said device is not very helpful to understanding human physiology, but then again i am just some schmuck on the interwebs and i dont even play a scientist on tv
I am a schmuck on the interwebs who went to school for microbiology and I can say for certain that the human body does not violate the 1st law of thermodynamics. Calorie deficit = your body must free up stored energy (in fat) to have enough energy to continue breathing = weight loss. Unless your body is able to create sustainable free energy out of a vacuum or unless you have a horrible genetic disorder that breaks down your bones for energy or unless you are dead
Sure, but wouldn't the calorimeter's reading still be the theoretical maximum since it's based on thermodynamics? In other words, an inefficient metabolism may see a net gain of fewer calories, but it shouldn't ever see greater.
I've not used a calorimeter, but my understanding is that is just measures heat energy from burning things. Things like sucralose and aspertame likely WOULD read as caloric in that kind of measurement, because they contain chemical energy. The reason those sweeteners read as 0 in nutrition labels is because of how we metabolize food. Or in this case, how we don't: we can't digest sucralose and similar sweeteners. It goes in, your tongue says "yay!" and you poop it out.
Also a schmuck on interweb; but healthcare is my area of expertise, so I've got a handful of college level human anatomy & physiology, nutrition, and microbiology courses to draw from here. I was also a fatass who wanted to join the military back in the day, which required losing a lot of weight - decided to approach it as scientifically as possible (there's a LOT of fad misinformation surrounding weightloss), and I can't complain about the results.
They read as zero due to rounding. In packet form they're almost always cut with dextrose/maltodextrin (which is definitely not zero-calorie).
What!? That makes no sense.
They saw an association between sweetener intake and change in fat over 25 years. Not relative to the population, relative to their past selves. How would a weight loss tool increasing your body fat over 25 years be obvious?
That's my point - it makes no sense. They're either overlooking something, or artificials have some influence on the calories out side of weight loss that we don't know about.
They have a pretty detailed discussion section. The main hypothesis they support, based on plenty of other evidence, is that these drugs increase appetite. They motivate you to eat more calories, even though they contain fewer calories themselves.
Could not agree more. They over complicated weight loss and what you have to do so badly now. Keto, Shmeeto, No carb, All carb, fasting, starving, whatever. Just STOP. Exercise regularly & use like an 80/20 method where 80% of the time you eat quality, whole foods. Keep portions within reason. Splurge where applicable. Exercise often. There, DONE. And yes, you can even eat some sugar and it wont kill you, LOL.