A recently published study from Purdue University may have discovered a shocking truth. This study examined the response of rats after eating an artificially-sweetened yogurt compared to a sugar-sweetened yogurt.
The astonishing thing about this study was that the rats which were fed a yogurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories, put on more weight, gained more body fat, and didn't show signs of decreasing the amount of calories consumes over time, compared to the rats that were fed the yogurt sweetened with sugar.
The reasoning ... the body is wired to associate consuming sweet foods with a lot of calories about to be consumed. What happens when an artificially-sweetened food is eaten is that the body is prepared for a lot of calories, but zero calories result from eating this type of food. This causes the body to become very confused, and it leads to eating even more calories and burning off less energy.
When the body eats, its calorie-burning engine is revved up. In the case of zero calories being associated with a sweet, artificially-sweetened food, the body's engine doesn't feel it ate anything, it doesn't rev up, and as a result, the body ends up eating more and burning off less.
Since these findings were discovered in rats, researchers are still to figure out if the same response would occur in humans. They also aren't sure if this is specific to saccharin, or if all artificial sweeteners would evoke a similar response.
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