Artificial Sweeteners Cause Weight Gain

People, who are trying to loose weight, are always counting calories when on diet. They are advised to take limited number of calories. Taking artificial sweeteners instead of general sugar is a well known way for reducing calories. However, a new research suggests, that sweeteners may cause even more weight gain then sugar.

Scientists did a research on subject of sweeteners and weight gain and looked at two groups of rats: the first group was fed with glucose, which has as much calories as general sugar, the second was fed with saccharin. By the end of study, the rats of second group ate more calories, gained more weight and more body fat.

When one's body takes sweets, metabolism goes up and prepares to burn calories, but when body takes sweets without calories, such as artificial sweeteners, metabolism goes down. This causes body fat and weight gain. Besides, when one takes natural sweets next time, body gets confused and metabolism doesn't get up. Besides, taking artificial food without calories may make it difficult to control calorie intake.

"I think at this point the issue is just that these kinds of products are not necessarily going to just produce weight loss. This suggests that it may actually produce the opposite effect," said Susan Swithers, an associate professor in the department of psychological sciences at Purdue University and one of the study's authors. "People may want to simply consider the possibility that simply switching to use these products isn't automatically going to result in dramatic weight loss," she added.

This researcher has been conducted only on rats, but scientists are almost sure, that human reaction will be nearly the same. Also, the research considered only saccharin, but Susan Swithers is sure that the results can be applied to any other artificial sweetener.

Therefore, before switching to "healthy" diet food overweight people should try natural healthy food, exercise, and healthy lifestyle.