When seeking a low or no-calorie sweet fix, people who are worried about their weight frequently turn to artificially sweetened items. However, is this tactic actually helpful for managing weight?
According to a recent study, it might be promising. “The Sweet Project”, a study, discovered that individuals who had quickly dropped weight and then swapped sugary meals and beverages for ones that contained sweeteners and sweetness enhancers (S&SE) kept the weight off for a full year.
“The use of low-calorie sweeteners in weight management has been questioned, in part because of the link between their use and apparent weight gain in observational studies,” co-author Jason Halford, PhD, president of the European Association for the Study of Obesity, said in the statement.
“However, increasingly it is becoming apparent that is not the case in long-term studies,” he added.
The study’s shortcomings were pointed out by the researchers, who also mentioned the limited sample size and the use of a general sweetener test rather than a type-specific one. The fact that women with higher educational levels made up the majority of participants raises additional concerns regarding the findings’ generalisability.
Moreover, there are risks involved with using artificial sweeteners but most of the researchers approved of it.
“There are many more health risks associated with being overweight or obese than there are with consuming artificial sweeteners,” Kylie Bensley, a registered dietitian and owner of Suluni Nutrition, told Health. “If temporarily substituting sugar-sweetened food and beverages helps a person lose weight, that is preferable.
The guidance is aimed at individual sweetener packets that people sprinkle into their morning coffee as well as the range of sugar substitutes that food companies are increasingly adding to processed foods and beverages, including breads, cereals, yogurts and snack bars.
Common non-sugar sweeteners named by WHO include acesulfame K, aspartame, advantame, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia and stevia derivatives.
The Calorie Control Council, a food industry group, said in a statement that it strongly disagrees with the WHO’s recommendation and that the safety of non-sugar sweeteners has been firmly established.
