Artificial sweeteners stimulate fat growth, harmful to metabolism, study finds

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.

Comments

  1. I wish someone would conduct a study on why democrats hate America. Seems they support every abnormal behavior and fringe group.

      1. Michael Moore
        Chelsea Handler
        Cher
        Colin Kapernik
        Rosie O’Donnell
        many other celebrities
        The BLM movement
        Antifa
        Nearly every snowflake on a university campus
        university faculty on nearly every campus
        most San Fransiscans
        most Seattlites
        Should I go on?

      2. OK where are the specific examples? You’re starting with Barack Obama? A popular two term President of the United States? When did President Obama ever say he hates America? Show me one example.

      3. Post links to articles containing quotes by any of these people to back up your foolish answers.

      4. No, just name one and link to an article that backs up your point. Remember, if a Democrat says something critical about America it doesn’t mean that person hates America. Does Donald Trump hate America for saying it isn’t great anymore? Or by colluding with Russia, our number one enemy?

      5. Compare the philosophy of Barack Obama to the people who founded this country, and you couldn’t imagine more fierce enemies.

        What does America mean to you? That is the question. To Barack Obama and the rest of the soviet left, their agenda for “hope and change” represent the very destruction of the previous order within the United States. That is why they “hate America,” just like the rest of the insolent gladiators in the NFL and Antifa whose very aim is to destroy the order of our American nation and replace it with their own chaotic, asexual American wasteland in the name of envy masquerading as equality.

        Member of the Democratic party are the biggest tools for these revolutionaries, and if you don’t learn to reject their false moral premises, you yourself and your posterity, if your generation are lucky enough to successfully breed, are headed for complete national suicide.

        Here’s a starter essay for you: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/10/president_obama_and_our_core_a.html

      6. You’re wrong! Just because you didn’t like Barack Obama doesn’t mean that Barack Obama hates America. Now grow up!

  2. Just by empirical evidence these results are not surprising. Hasn’t there been a huge spike in obesity since the low fat, sugar free push?? (yes there has)

    1. I saw an article that showed that the obesity outbreak coincides perfectly with the start of the war on animal fats.

    2. The low fat push was started LONG after the “low cal” stuff. Don’t you remember, diet pop in the ’60s? And the moronic low fat thing was more of, what a late 90s push? There wasn’t some huge spike in obesity in the 60s or 70s or even much in the 80s, when diet soda pops were everywhere, same as now. You cannot make any rational conclusion at all, using what you just wrote.

      1. I wasn’t alive in the 60s and 70s, Grandpa. I’m pretty sure that sucralose and aspartame did not exist back then in diet sodas. After a quick google search, the low fat recommendation nucleated from a 1976 senate hearing called by George McGovern. So, yes, I do think there’s a direct correlation between obesity and fake sugar and low fat. Btw, fake sugar spikes your insulin – this is proven

    3. Nope. Most obesity in the nation is among the poor. Give people free food and take away self-esteem through the dole, and you get the food equivalent of alcoholism: emotional eating to excess to compensate for lack of self-worth.

  3. This should be obvious. I notice a lot of defensive denial… Personally, I can’t stand the taste of chemical sweetener and, frankly, I can’t imagine anyone does without first acclimating their taste buds. That should be evidence enough. Not to mention the obvious fact that they’re ARTIFICIAL. Would you spray round up on your iced tea? I wouldn’t. (Fun fact: Monsanto STARTED as a company peddling saccharin)

  4. Some folks at MIT, Harvard and Berkeley became concerned about research they were seeing. They did an extensive drill down and announced that 67% of “medical” studies are so poor and erroneous as to border on being hoaxes. I think they are going to establish a watchdog group, hopefully.

  5. Apparently the only diet that works for losing weight is the No Food Diet but even this leads to starvation and death in a couple of months. Oh well.

  6. Have these findings been replicated by anyone else? Do the results show a clear cause and effect or just a statistical inference?

  7. Those cells were in a culture medium with essentially unlimited glucose, so, that experiment is more like what would happen if you had a diet soda while continuously eating massive quantities of sugar. The diet soda ain’t gonna make any difference in how fat you get.

    1. This hasn’t been known at all. It’s been SAID, and many have used anecdotal evidence, like that silly junk about how inoculations cause autism.

  8. Breaking…study finds that believing published study findings is hazardous to your sanity.

    Best to wait for the next 9 studies which will all invalidate themselves and each other.

  9. The conclusions of this limited study deserve serious attention. Since the introduction of artificial sweeteners a new type of fatty liver has been recognized. In medical terms it is called;” steatohepatitis” .
    This new type of liver disease will soon be the most common cause for a “liver transplant”
    This author speaks from personal experience!


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *