“Adam Drewnowski [..] makes an astute point to the LA Times: ‘We now have studies showing that sugar calories are associated with obesity and the absence of sugar is associated with obesity. Pity those people trying to do something about obesity.’”

The studies haven’t associated ‘absence of sugar’ with obesity (e.g. replacing sugared soda with water), the studies have associated *sugar substitutes* — calorie-less substances which register on the tongue (i.e. the brain) as sugar — with with obesity.

Adam’s misrepresentation of the situation is the polar opposite of an “astute point”, it’s poor scientific reasoning; exactly the kind of thing that has let so much bad nutrition science become public policy over the past 50 years.

Bad Science for sure.

“The studies haven’t associated ‘absence of sugar’ with obesity (e.g. replacing sugared soda with water), the studies have associated *sugar substitutes* — calorie-less substances which register on the tongue (i.e. the brain) as sugar — with with obesity.

Adam’s misrepresentation of the situation is the polar opposite of an “astute point”, it’s poor scientific reasoning; exactly the kind of thing that has let so much bad nutrition science become public policy over the past 50 years.”
Unfortunately, Eric’s rhetoric misses the point too. Now we have studies showing that sugar substitutes are associated with obesity and that sugar is associated with obesity. We still need to “pity those people trying to do something about obesity.”

Unfortunately, Eric’s rhetoric misses the point too. Now we have studies showing that sugar substitutes are associated with obesity and that sugar is associated with obesity. We still need to “pity those people trying to do something about obesity.”

Why the need for pity? Just have them lower their sugar intake - both normal and substitute sugar. As Eric points out, because the absence of sugar has NOT been linked to obesity, it still serves as a perfectly good alternative for those trying to do something about their obesity. I.E. avoid sugar!

Susan Swither’s suggestion that the sweet taste of artificial sweeteners (AS) may be leading to weight gain may not be the whole (or even a part) of the phenomenon. AS can’t be digested but binds like sugar to your taste buds (often much more strongly), that’s why it’s sweet. But there are sugar sensors and binders throughout your body doing many things - do you suppose AS could be affecting them as well?

“Unfortunately, Eric’s rhetoric misses the point too. Now we have studies showing that sugar substitutes are associated with obesity and that sugar is associated with obesity. We still need to ‘pity those people trying to do something about obesity.’”

Um, no. More faulty logic.

We’re supposed to pity the situation where SUGAR and ABSENCE OF SUGAR both lead to obesity, because that’s a dichotomy, you have to choose one or the other and you’re screwed either way.

The real situation is that SUGAR and SUGAR SUBSTITUTES lead to obesity. That’t not a dichotomy, you can choose to use neither sugar nor sugar substitutes.

In other words, the problem is that replacing sugared soda with artificially sweetened soda appears to do more harm that good, whereas Adam’s assertion was that you’re screwed even if you replace sugared soda with water (which would indeed be pitiable).

This is old news, “sweeteners” such as Splenda, have been accused of this before, a couple years back. http://www.the-avandia-lawyer.com

I tried to find the original source of Adam Drewnowski’s comments, and (surprise to surprise) it turns out he receives funding from the beverage industry, and has written lengthy articles about how high fructose corn syrup has gotten a “bad rap”. *lol*

I guess we really need to pity the average consumer, who is not only besieged by lies in advertising (”Choosy moms choose Jiff!®”), but misinformation straight from the mouths of so-called scientists and public health officials.

Gary Taube’s new book (Good Calories, Bad Calories) is a worthwhile read, even if you don’t agree with his conclusions, because of it’s fascinating review of the intersection of science, politics, and capitalism in nutrition science over the past 100 years.

I wonder, though, how the rats metabolism would have reacted to reduced calories & an increase in the # of calories being burned in the form of exercise.

“I wonder, though, how the rats metabolism would have reacted to reduced calories & an increase in the # of calories being burned in the form of exercise.”

If your experiment tweaks multiple knobs at once, how do you evaluate the results? Were your results caused by calorie restriction, exercise, both, or something else (such as stress induced in the animals being forced to exercise)?

Doing science with any kind of rigor is not trivial, which is why it’s so often done poorly. It’s certainly not easy in the case of nutrition, where it can be hard to isolate potentially causative effects. For instance, if you reduce an animal’s carbohydrate intake, you necessarily either (1) increase it’s calorie intake, or (2) reduce it’s protein and/or fat intake. It’s very hard to fiddle just one knob at a time.

In this case, both groups of rats were fed a sweetened drink, with the only change being the sweetener used. That still results in two changes in the diet of the test group relative to the control group: (1) the removal of sugar, (2) the addition of saccharine. To really isolate the effects of artificial sweetener, I’d like to see what happens when the control group is fed water while the test group is fed artificially sweetened water.

I think EVERYONE is missing the point! These studies show that you can make RATS (all TEN of them—hmmm…maybe we have an “N” problem) fat using saccharine. It said NOTHING about humans and NOTHING about other types of arificial sweetener.

Come on people…if you’re going to invoke science, then INVOKE it! Don’t degrade the discussion to pop-media drivel.

…oops…NINE rats got fat…my bad!

“It said NOTHING about humans”

If you’re contending that rat studies have no relevance to humans (even as indicator of what human studies might prove fruitful), then you better get busy, because you have a mountain of contrary evidence to explain away. Good luck with that.

I remember reading somewhere that a study was performed in humans and that they actually ended up gaining weight because they ate more sweets after using the artificial sweeteners. These sweeteners are so sweet that in order to get the same taste one has to use a lot more sugar if you stop using them.

That’s not true, Calvin. I use artificial sweeteners regularly and now sugar tastes way too sweet to me. I am also loosing weight, but I credit regular exercise for that…I’m experiencing slow steady weight loss by adding 1/2 hour of exercise a day to my routine. I drink approx. 1/2 gallon of artificially sweetened beverage a day because I live in an arid climate at high altitude. All I can say is… this rat study doesn’t match my own experience. I’m losing about a pound a week at this point.

1/2 Gallon a day of artificially sweetened drinks? That is a catastrophic chemical attack on your nervous system. I suggest you read Dr. Russell Blaylock before you end up with Alzheimers or worse.

Most of you really should watch what you place in your bodies, it is not prudent to ingest large amount of artificial sweeteners (more then two packets of saccharine a day, though stevia is looking promising). Next this whole calorie issue and weight gain is not being thought about intelligently at all. If you ate artificial sweeteners in lieu of glucose and fructose, it is undeniable better as far as weight is concern. You do not magically gain weight unless you place high-energy food in your body. Unlike carbohydrates, artificial sweeteners your body cant use them, thus it has no impact on you DV of calories. What does happen to the body is, the trigger of a chemicals cascade to prepare itself if the sugary food “it thinks” its receiving. When nothing of substance comes in, these chemical messengers make you feel hungry and you end up eating more, exactly what happened to the rats, not because the sugar or lack of, but simply because they were more hungry.

I was once borderline diabetic, I know what a sugar cascade feels like, biochem. I don’t get that with artificials at all. I do with sugar. So I changed my eating habits to include whole grains, more fruits and vegetables and cut out the sugars and caffeine. Now I’m totally stable.
Dave- if you live at 7000 feet and don’t drink lots of liquid, you get seriously dehydrated. You’re a paranoid health nut, I bet. I also bet I can outpace you on any high altitude trail any time. Besides, I don’t breathe all the garbage you probably do at a lower polluted altitude. It’s all a mmatter of perspective, but I’m probably far heathier than many paranoid city dwelling “toxin” fearing weaklings.

Our ancestors were not fat and did not have artificial sweetners. Eating healthy means eating REAL foods in moderate quantities. A diet Coke is NOT a health food! Does anyone really believe that pumping your body full of Splenda is good for you? It is just an excuse so that they can continue to eat whatever they want and not understand why they are getting fat.

My education background is partly in art history, slam. By todays standards, many people depicted in 16th century art (just as an example) would be considered obese today. Look at the women painted by Reubens and Botticelli. Also, look at photos of crowds from the 1890’s through 1950’s. There isn’t much difference in size of individuals from contemporary crowds. City dwelling sedentary workers and their children who can’t play outside due to “stranger danger” may weigh more than people who move around more. Big surprise. But city dwelling “toxin” fearing health nuts want a quick and simple answer, so they stampede from theory to theory, always finger waving and worried someone somewhere might be enjoying their food. Eat less, move more. That is the answer in a nutshell. But it’s inconvenient so the demon du jour will shift from thing to thing. Remember the low carb craze when it was “healthy” to eat garbage like pork rinds? Today it’s artificial sweeteners, tomorrow it will be something else.

Different sweeteners taste different to different people. I know that Splenda tastes about twice as sweet as sugar to me, but not to my husband.

I’m not touching the rest of this with a ten-foot pole!

The study data reported on here suggest that rats fed yogurt sweetened with artificial sweetners gained more weight under conditions of the experiment than rats eating yogurt sweetned with glucose, given standard conditions for the rest of their diets.

It “suggests” nothing else.

“If you ate artificial sweeteners in lieu of glucose and fructose, it is undeniable better as far as weight is concern.”

You’re saying it’s “undeniable” in the face of a study that shows it’s NOT, at least in rats. That’s the moral equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears so you don’t have to hear something you don’t want to.

Weight regulation is far more complicated than the naive ‘energy in, energy out’ model that has been pushed by public health officials since the 70s. The science simple doesn’t support that. It never has. The body has extremely sophisticated homeostasis mechanisms. If you reduce calorie intake, it compensates. If you increase calorie intake, it compensates. This has been demonstrated in study after study.

If that homeostasis gets disrupted — as it does in the case of metabolic syndrome, where tissues to become insulin resistant leading to a compensatory overproduction of insulin (which is the hormone that regulates fat storage) — your body will store anything you eat as fat, even if it means draining your blood of all sugars and leaving you feeling tired and weak. This study (the one we’re talking about, above) has demonstrated that artificial sweeteners can contribute to metabolic syndrome.

“Remember the low carb craze when it was ‘healthy’ to eat garbage like pork rinds?”

Remember the low fat craze when it was ‘healthy’ to eat garbage like potatoes? The ‘fat makes you fat’ hypothesis sounds reasonable, but none of the science supports it. The French are thin and Italians are fat for a reason: carbs. On evolutionary time scales, the invention of agriculture is brand new. Our biology is not adapted to deal with carbohydrate diets, especially refined carbs. There is overwhelming evidence that virtually all the ‘diseases of civilization’ — hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, cancer, senile dementia — are symptoms of the same underlying disorder, caused by oxidative stress and disruption of blood sugar regulation mechanism. Missionaries have reported time and time again that bringing white flower and sugar to populations where these diseases virtually do not exist, introduces them all.

If you’re going to read one book on the subject it should be Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. It’s not a diet book, Taubes has no vested interest in any particular hypothesis: he’s a science journalist, who has written for years about the process and politics of science; how good science is done, and how bad science is done. Good Calories, Bad Calories is one of the most thoroughly researched books in human history (that’s not an exaggeration). It’s huge, not easy reading, has a 60+ page bibliography, but it covers in exhausting detail the last 100 years of nutrition research and how hypotheses poorly supported by science (such as the low fat hypothesis) have become official dogma.

I’m just glad medicine keeps advancing. Because it sure is difficult to know what to do. Yes, the LA Times guy got the science wrong. But the overriding commentary is correct — it is difficult to know what to do for yourself in a world of constantly evolving science, poor representation of that science in the media, and diet and personal health programs peddled by a range of experts claiming to have discovered the One True Way.

“Yes, the LA Times guy got the science wrong. But the overriding commentary is correct — it is difficult to know what to do for yourself in a world of constantly evolving science, poor representation of that science in the media, and diet and personal health programs peddled by a range of experts claiming to have discovered the One True Way.”

The irony is that his overriding commentary is only correct because his specific commentary is NOT. In other words, it’s hard to know what to do because guys like him intentionally muddy the waters.

In fact, this is one case where it’s easy to know what to do: don’t drink sugar _or_ artificial sweeteners. You can’t go wrong with water.

However, he’s a stock holder in beverage companies, his “research” is funded by the beverage industry, so it’s his job is to confuse the issue wherever possible. His false dichotomy wasn’t a slip of the tongue; he wants people to believe they are screwed no matter what they do, so they may as well drink what they like. That keeps his share values high and his financiers happy.

This one is interesting too.
If you have time

The photograph you used with this article was absolutely terrible. People can’t just snap a photo with a digital camera under flourescent, or even incandescent, lighting and obtain a decent picture without doing a little color correction to fix the ill-effect of “room” lighting. I hope the Journal didn’t pay a royalty for that shot.

Eric wrote:
> The irony is that his overriding commentary is only
> correct because his specific commentary is NOT. In
> other words, it’s hard to know what to do because
> guys like him intentionally muddy the waters.”

It doesn’t help when you’ve got the New York Times calling his observations “astute”.

Biochem and nope made good points…almost everyone else seems to like gossip; homeostasis is correct but in this case is irrelevant. The body compensates only when a lack of food is available. The body will not go into “survival” mode until this threshold is reach. Syndrome x or metabolic syndrome is still under speculation at the exact cause, all that is known at this time is that insulin resistance seems to corresponds with a increase in plasma fatty acid concentrations. This could be related to a low card lifestyle or numerous other possibilities but as you mention the body is complex and this information is slow to come forth. However by mainstream knowledge this experiment just verifies that eating more causes weight gain…not really a surprise. The study should not be extrapolated to mean anything more considering no quantities tests were done. I should mention in similar studies it is shown that aspartame and cyclamate does cause an increase in insulin, which again could be the cause of some insulin resistance. Of course saccharin has been also shown to affect insulin but to a lesser extent then its counterparts. It is very important to mention that although they do increase the level of insulin, which does promote fat storage if on a low calorie program or doing a ketogenic diet, there is no evidence to say if an individual is fallowing a normal diet and uses artificial sweeteners he/she will be at risk for fat gain or insulin resistance.

p.s. regardless what you think…artificial sugars will increases anyone’s appetite when they are on a diet, and second artificial sugar is several hundreds times sweetener then glucose, which is the reason it is cut with additives

Dear Ms. Grijalva:

My comment is regarding your article posted at: http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=7856645&nav=menu86_13_6.

Not to take the article out of context, but specifically you reported: “A spokesperson for the artificial sweetener industry says the study oversimplified the causes of obesity.”

The industry presents a truthful paradox. What causes obesity is as complex as the universe. When the industry spins the truth by saying “the study oversimplified the causes of obesity”, it shoots itself in the foot.

Rather than use the study to demonstrate the complex natures (plural) of each cause that contributes to obesity, the industry misses a golden opportunity to expand the use of its product by showing the positive causes and effects associated with balancing life’s many scales. That is only in my opinion.

Emanuel McCray
http://www.emccray.com
emanuel.mccray@gmail.com
P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day.

The suggestion that “when the calories don’t arrive because the sweetness was artificial, the body learns not to crank up the metabolic furnace” is plausible. If all sweet food we (or rats) ate was artificially sweetened I find it persuasive that the suggestion would account for the increased weight gain. However, most humans, even strict dieters, obtain sweet tastes from a variety of sources, perhaps more of which are natural than artificial. Ergo, the body only sometimes mobilizes resources unnecessarily and so will probably not learn that it is unnecessary to do so.

The ways to reduce weight includes eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, taking high fiber diet, drinking more water, cutting down on sugar and doing regular exercise. Artificial sweeteners are often used as part of a weight-loss plan or as a means to control weight gain. People with diabetes also use artificial sweeteners because they make food taste sweet without raising the blood sugar. Since artificial sweeteners were considered a boon for diabetics and obese persons it became very popular. But after this study, people who use artificial sweeteners will be vigilant about the possibility of weight increase as the research is done only on rats.

Smitha RN,
GS3 India Services PVT LTD,
www.bestmedjourneys.com

Chemical poison