Do Artificial Sweeteners Induce Sugar Cravings?
This is an interesting follow-up question on post #83: Diet Sodas and Metabolic Risks: “I have heard that the intense sweet flavor of artificial sweeteners signals the body that there are a lot of carbohydrates coming. Since the diet soft drink provides none, a craving for them may be stimulated – hence the weight gain associated with sodas, diet or not. Have you heard this explanation before?”
Indeed, I have. I’ve seen a couple of studies suggesting that artificial sweeteners encourage the taste for sweet. I think these are preliminary and need further confirmation but the idea is consistent with trends. As I explain in the chapter on diet drinks in What to Eat, rates of overweight have risen in parallel with the increase in use of artificial sweeteners, so on a population basis, the chemicals don’t seem to do any good for weight trends. Individuals may find them helpful to control calorie intake, but on average most people seem to compensate–and overcompensate–for calorie savings from artificial sweeteners. After all, a teaspoon of sugar is only 16 calories and it doesn’t take much to compensate. When it comes to food, I don’t like anything artificial and I don’t like the way artificial sweeteners taste, so they are pretty low on my recommended list. I much prefer sugar, especially the brown crystalline kind.
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Comments
When I was in college in the 80s, I waitressed at the local Friendly’s restaurant, a sandwich and ice cream shop. I used to find it ironic when customers (usually on the large side) would order the largest sundaes on the menu (4-5 scoops of ice cream plus several sweet toppings) and a large TAB diet soda.
I agree! And aspartame is potentially unsafe (although the FDA fails to recognize these studies) & Splenda has no long term human studies.
Moderate sugar-in-the-raw for all!
What is your take on Stevia? I use that to make desserts/drinks for my friend who has type 1 diabetes. I prefer that to other artificial sweetners.
I talk about Stevia in my book, What to Eat, and also on a blog post that you can find if you click on the cloud listing for Sweeteners. I don’t think anything has changed since the last post. Thanks for asking.
I did just find the post stating that coke was patenting for stevia use in other countries. Also I got the book today and am looking forward to it! Thank you for the response.
Hi there,
Totally agree with you on not being a fan of artificial flavours or sweeteners. You are right, it doesn’t taste nice or natural for that matter. I can’t see that this will be good for anyone and will only take the hard work out of dieting if done wrong.
Thanks for the post. It was really useful
Michael
Great article, thanks!
There are many more articles and video clips about artificial sweeteners, and they are actually make people to gain weight and make them to crave for sugar/sweets more than before. It is true that one tsp of sugar is only 16 calories, and I totally agree with you that I’d rather have the real sugar then having all these harmful chemicals, artificial sweeteners (aspartame, saccharine etc). But what do you say if there is natural sweetener, “Natvia”, which doesn’t contain any of aspartame and saccharine? Also it uses the purest part of stevia which will get rid of the bitter aftertaste? And most importantly, it has less calories than sugar that one tsp of Natvia (natural sweetener) is only 0.6 calories. It was just amazing when I tried this.