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Diet Drinks Can
Make You Fatter
Artificial Sweeteners Wreck Body's Calorie Counter

By John Mceachran
Glasgow Daily Record - UK
7-2-4
 
Diet drinks may make slimmers fatter, scientists claimed yesterday.
 
They say the taste of the artificial sweeteners which replace sugar in the low-calorie drinks damage the body's ability to link sweetness with high calorie content in other items.
 
Research at Purdue University, Indiana, showed people learn from childhood that sweet tastes signal fattening food.
 
But this ability to distinguish foods which are high in calories can be disrupted when they take low-calorie sweet foods, such as diet drink.
 
Professor Terry Davidson said: 'The body's natural ability to regulate food intake and body weight may be weakened when this natural relationship is impaired by artificial sweeteners.
 
'Without thinking about it, the body learns that it can use food characteristics such as sweetness and viscosity to gauge its caloric intake.
 
'The body may use this information to determine how much food is required to meet its calorific needs.
 
'When you substitute artificial sweetener for real sugar, however, the body learns it can no longer use its sense of taste to 'count' calories.
 
'This finding may explain why increasing numbers of people lack the natural ability to regulate food intake and body weight.'
 
The researchers studied two groups of rats one given full-sugar drinks and the second fed liquids with artificial sweeteners.
 
After 10 days, the rats were allowed to eat a chocolate snack. And the rats given diet drinks ate much more than the other group.
 
Prof Davidson said: 'This suggests the artificial sweeteners reduced the natural ability of the rats to use sweet taste to judge the calorific content of the snack.'
 
The number of Americans using sugar-free products increased from fewer than 70million in 1987 to more than 160million in 2000.
 
Prof Davidson said: 'Consumption of sweeteners is not the sole cause of obesity but it maybe a contributing factor.'
 
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14385402
&method=full&siteid=89488&headline=diet-drinks-can-
make-you-fatter-name_page.html


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