Study: Artificial Sweeteners May Lead To Greater Calorie Consumption

Forbes reports that a new University of Sydney study published in Cell Metabolism found that fruit flies “ate 30% more calories when their food was artificially sweetened than when it was naturally sweetened.” A similar result was also found when the experiment was replicated with mice. Study author Greg Neely explained, “After chronic exposure to a diet that contained the artificial sweetener sucralose, we saw that animals began eating a lot more. Through systematic investigation of this effect, we found that inside the brain’s reward centers, sweet sensation is integrated with energy content. When sweetness versus energy is out of balance for a period of time, the brain recalibrates and increases total calories consumed.”