Exercise and Fitness Blog

Some of you may remember a previous post in this blog in which I mentioned a study that suggested nutritional needs should be met through diet alone. There may now be some evidence to support this in the case of sugar vs. artificial sweeteners. The basis of the study suggests that animals (that includes us humans) associate the sweet taste of food to is caloric content. This holds true for sugar, which has a high density of calories, but not for the artificial sweeteners.

In a study they did using rats, they found that the introduction of artificial sweeteners caused a group of rats to gain weight and eat more than a second group of rats that received food sweetened by glucose (or regular sugar). The conclusion, they suggest, could be that using artificial sweetener has the potential to interfere with an automatic process and may result in weight gain.

If you’re into reading scientific reports, here is the original study, which gives a lot more detail than this small post. The take home message seems to be to maintain a well balanced diet, where the food you take in meets your nutritional needs, and to maintain an active lifestyle with enough exercise to stay fit.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Fitness Motivation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.