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WASHINGTON — Artificial sweeteners have an effect on the body’s metabolism and can lead to excessive fat accumulation in people, especially those who are already obese, according to a recent study.

Dr. Sabyasachi Sen, an associate professor of medicine and endocrinology at George Washington University, led the study, explaining in a press release by the Endocrine Society that while many people rely on these artificial sweeteners as a low-calorie alternative to natural sweeteners, “there is increasing scientific evidence that these sweeteners promote metabolic dysfunction.”

Sugar or artificial sweetener
A new study finds that low-calorie artificial sweeteners can promote fat growth, especially in those already overweight, and can disturb one’s metabolism.

Sen and his colleagues tested the popular low-calorie sweetener sucralose on stem cells taken from human fat cells. They placed these cells in Petri dishes for 12 days, adding 0.2 millimolars of sucralose. The dosage is based on the concentration of sucralose in the bloodstreams of people with high consumption levels of the artificial sweetener — about four cans of diet soda per day.

The researchers observed increased expression of genes that produce fat and inflammation. They also saw an increased accumulation of fat droplets in the cells, especially when they increased the concentration of sucralose.

Using this data, Sen and his team analyzed biopsy samples of abdominal fat from eight subjects who consumed low-calorie sweeteners like sucralose and aspartame. Half of the subjects were a healthy weight, half were obese.

Dr. Sen found evidence of over-expressed fat-producing genes and of increased glucose transport into cells.

This metabolic dysregulation causes cells to produce more fat, according to Dr. Sen.

“We believe that low-calorie sweeteners promote additional fat formation by allowing more glucose to enter the cells, and promotes inflammation, which may be more detrimental in obese individuals,” explains Sen.

The findings from this study were presented at ENDO 2017, the Endocrine Society’s 99th annual meeting in Orlando in April.

About Ben Renner

Writer, editor, curator, and social media manager based in Denver, Colorado. View my writing at http://rennerb1.wixsite.com/benrenner.

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110 Comments

  1. Oboy_must_go says:

    To satisfy my sweet tooth I started munching on dates. More healthy and sweet too.

    1. His Eminence says:

      So did Jeffrey Dahmer. It didn’t end well for him.

      1. Oboy_must_go says:

        LOL. Took me awhile to get that.

      2. Jim says:

        LOL!! Oh, that’s sick! And very funny!

  2. Killface says:

    “Studies” have become almost as bad as Polling these days. All the corporation or group that wants to finance the study has to do is find a few research scientists who’ll conduct the study in a way that will deliver the desired results. Science lives off grants and no one gives out grants for studies that don’t support their cause. Just another example of how everything has been politicized in one way or another.

  3. winston smith says:

    I recently found out I have diabetes. The doctor put me on a pill and gave me a blood-sugar device to check my blood levels. Along with watching what I ate, I started drinking a lot of diet drinks, but my number kept climbing. I switched to regular cokes and within a few days my numbers dropped to normal. I’m convinced that diet sweeteners trick the body.

    1. JtC says:

      I know people who have gotten completely off their diabetes meds just because they stopped eating bread and grain products. Bread=bad, I guess. But it is delicious!

      1. winston smith says:

        You got that right. I tried Atkins once. The day I started I craved carbs. I’m not obese, just overweight. I know I’d look and feel better, but food is my passion. The diets I’ve been on made me an unhappy camper. At 69, it’s probably better to simply eat, drink, and be merry. Life is too ephemeral to waste it.

    2. frgough says:

      Yeah, sure they did.

  4. Buddy says:

    NEW STUDY: artificial sweeteners do not taste good

    1. Killface says:

      Splenda tastes fine to me, I use it everyday in my iced tea at work.
      Once you get used to the taste, then sugar tastes too sweet.

    2. His Eminence says:

      Stevia, baby. All day. It’s actually natural but so sweet you need almost none to get the same effect as sugar.

  5. john Diamond says:

    studies have now proven that someone put the very flammable Hydrogen in your water!!!!! call your democrat senator and tell them to quit worrying about Guam tipping over and start worrying about this flammable substance being hidden in water!!!!!

    1. Oboy_must_go says:

      HUH?

      1. john Diamond says:

        sarcasm not your strong suit? democrat Congressman Hank Johnson once said he was worried that the Island of Guam would tip over( Its on you tube and easily Googled) Water is made of Hydrogen and oxygen….and I am highlighting how the same stupid logic, used in the article above, could be used to claim water is unsafe. If you still don’t understand I can’t help you. All the best.

  6. john Diamond says:

    I remember when oat bran was going to save the world. And when Butter was declared bad but margarine was good etc etc…Eggs kill you…oops no they don’t but Cholesterol is bad…oops no it isn’t…but red meat causes cancer…except it doesn’t and now studies show it helps to fight depression…..There is a reason that good science is skeptical.

    1. His Eminence says:

      They’ve done this same dance with coffee, mustard, wine…. it’s endless.

  7. SactoDan says:

    Personally, I’ll have sugar, maybe less of it, than an artifical sweetener.

  8. David says:

    just stick with real sugar.

  9. Stan Bartsch says:

    Wait – we’re discussing a study with a grand total of EIGHT subjects? That is in NO WAY significant – it’s trolling for more money…..

    1. professorchaos says:

      That’s eight more subjects than they used to prove that the Cox 2 Inhibitor Celebrex was safe.

      1. Killface says:

        Hollywood could volunteer a few more subjects for a cox inhibitor. Louis CK and Weinstein have trouble inhibiting their cox!!!

  10. LWAPolitics says:

    Sugar. Fake sugar. It is all terrible for you. Humans weren’t meant to have concentrated sweeteners in their diet. If you want something sweet, eat fruit.

    1. GS says:

      Fruit has sugar Einstein.

      1. ryno55 says:

        He’s talking about concentrated sweeteners, Oppenheimer.

      2. GS says:

        His first sentence says sugar is terrible for you. Then he says eat fruit, which contains sugar, if you want something sweet.

      3. frgough says:

        I wasn’t aware anyone guzzled corn syrup straight from the bottle. I thought they usually put it in food, thus diluting it.

      4. Feynman says:

        Fruit also has fiber, which slows the absorption and resulting insulin spike from the fructose

      5. LWAPolitics says:

        Fruit has fiber which has been shown to slow glucose absorption lowering blood sugar levels. The problem (read my original comment again) is CONCENTRATED sweeteners. Sweeteners where you have removed everything else that was with it in its original form. Fruit isn’t the problem. Extracted sugar from “fruit” is the problem.

      6. LWAPolitics says:

        And by the way, nice passive aggressive put down. I could respond in kind but I will stick to the issue instead.

      7. S.Ryan says:

        You do respond in kind all over the forums you post in and on.

        Very hypocritical of you.

  11. President & Mrs. Stainmaker says:

    I hate artificial sweeteners.

    I prefer sugar and corn syrup…and a good cigar, when you know what to do with it. đŸ˜‰

    1. Clementine Hale says:

      You’re a sick person. get some help.

      1. President & Mrs. Stainmaker says:

        Do you like cigars?

      2. Clementine Hale says:

        Really get some help immediately!!! Disgusting thoughts have made you one disgusting, sick, abnormal animal. Go away and leave the normal people alone.

      3. President & Mrs. Stainmaker says:

        Monica was my human humidor. I’m the Comeback Kid.

        Don’t get any on ya!!!

      4. Max Miller says:

        Swisher Sweets…

  12. James Vincent Ghelarducci says:

    I’m sure if you drink 10 diet sodas a day it can be harmful, but excess of anything is harmful.

  13. American Insurgency says:

    Get back to me in 20 years. I’ve stopped listening to these studies as they are almost ALWAYS invalidated by a follow up study.

    1. Rational_Db8 says:

      The study is highly questionable right on the face of it from what’s reported here. First, it’s an in vitro study. When we drink or eat things that have artificial sweeteners, they have to pass through our digestive system and other body processes which may make a huge difference in how much or what even makes it to cells, Next, they only studied stem cells in petri dishes, not the vastly more common types of cells in the body. Next, it sounds like they had no control group. Finally, they never say/apparently didn’t study how this compares to people using sugar instead. And that’s just off the top of my head.

      So – it’s a subject well worth studying, but we sure as heck need a lot more and a lot better than this before coming to ANY conclusions. The conclusions from this study simply aren’t supported by the study data. They might be ok if phrased very clearly as speculation, and calls for more study – but that’s the extent of it.

      1. amanda says:

        I am sure the article here is compressed for laymen and there was much more involved in the study than stated above.

      2. Rational_Db8 says:

        I’m sure that’s true – but what is presented here is supposedly a good overview of the study – and as such, it’s dismally flawed.

      3. frgough says:

        Don’t be so sure. There’s not a whole lot of science going on these days.

      4. +One says:

        Global Warming is a prime example. Create the results you want, and massage the data until it fits . If it can’t be molded to fit, ignore it.

  14. Trump for Life says:

    Hillary must be supersaturating her swimming pool with aspartame.

    1. Oboy_must_go says:

      LOL

  15. Trump for Life says:

    Make up your mind. Slowed glucose uptake causes diabetes. Increased uptake should reduce the risk of diabetes. Sounds like we need to use sucralose as an anti-diabetic agent in conjunction with calorie restriction and exercise.

    1. President & Mrs. Stainmaker says:

      Or calorie restriction and exercise alone — assuming patient compliance, of course.

      Now that won’t sell sucralose, but…

      1. frgough says:

        Patient compliance is easier to accomplish when your regimen isn’t hell on earth.

  16. Ed Surrett says:

    Bullshit….bogus study…..

    1. professorchaos says:

      They trot this out every few months during slow news days when they need some filler. That and the one about aspartame turns into formaldehyde. Rice contains arsenic but the Yalu River isn’t clogged with dead Chinese.

  17. Holistic says:

    Not many people drink 4 cans of soda a day. That seems like a lot to add to the daily research.

    1. Feynman says:

      I bet a lot of people drink more than 4 diet sodas a day. Not to mention sugar free gum, yogurt, coffee, flavored water, and many other sugar free products.

      1. Holistic says:

        When you throw them all together perhaps. But the use the equivalent of 4 sodas. I eat yogurt every day but limit my intake to those with less than 10grams of sugar

      2. Christopher Wallace says:

        I EAT ASS

      3. Oboy_must_go says:

        Thanks for your input. LOL

  18. BENDER tharobot says:

    Aspartame is militarized e.coli bacteria that are fed toxic waste then the e.coli bacteria poop out aspartame an excitotoxin that’s bad for your brain and your body but it’s your body so drink and eat what you want

    1. frgough says:

      Yeah, and honey is bee vomit. And 50% of salt is a deadly, corrosive substance used in WWI as a horrifying chemical weapon.

      1. BENDER tharobot says:

        Like I said it’s your body fatty suck down all the poop you want

      2. professorchaos says:

        Use a comma every once in a while for chrissakes.

      3. Timothy Weaver says:

        And the other half of salt explodes on contact with water.

    2. professorchaos says:

      And rice contains arsenic

  19. Gene Douglass says:

    Well, funny he did not study cyclamates or Saccharin!

    1. Heartland Patriot says:

      In the “old days”, all the sodas had real sugar in them, and people put real sugar in their coffee and tea, as well. There was less obesity back then. It’s not about sugar, it is about lack of daily physical activity versus total caloric consumption, and about people eating foods that try to “trick” their body.

      1. Gene Douglass says:

        Tricking one’s body with some Diet Coke, vs eating too much sugar/High fructose corn syrup causing spike in blood sugar and insulin response? Which is worse?? The latter of course! Unfortunately, many who use articifical sweeteners believe the can eat more of calorie laden food to take the place of sugar/HFCS in one’s diet. Nope, too many calories leads to weight gain.

    2. frgough says:

      The purpose of this study is to get soft drinks completely banned. Just like Olestra. Can’t have folks finding an alternative way to eat food these folks think we shouldn’t be eating at all.

      1. Gene Douglass says:

        If people use olestra too much, it gives them “the runs”, as it is not digested/absorbed by the intestines. Artificial sweeteners are mostly excreted out of the body unchanged by the liver and the kidneys. Some artificial sweeteners even sweeten one’s urine.

  20. bordo says:

    I always believed diet sodas were fattening because only fat people drank them…

    1. Trump for Life says:

      That’s the level of science knowledge of the average Democrat.

      1. bordo says:

        I was being a little sarcastic but also quite observant…

    2. Oboy_must_go says:

      Yea, they’d order 3 big macs, a large fires and a diet coke. LOL

      1. President & Mrs. Stainmaker says:

        “…a large fires [sic]…”

        “Fire bad!” ~ Frankenstein’s monster

    3. Rational_Db8 says:

      Except that’s not even remotely true.

    4. President & Mrs. Stainmaker says:

      Study finds that you’re diagnosed with causality confusion.

      There are no elephants in my backyard; however, do not assume that I successfully applied elephant repellent thereto.