Diet and lifestyle are important health influencers.With the current increase in obesity and its associated metabolic conditions, including TY2DM, CVD, and fatty liver disease, the focus has shifted to dietary over consumption and energy restriction. Improving the energy balance and dietary habits are important strategies to achieve weight loss. One of the way to achieve energy balance is to refrain from sugars and replacing them with artificial sweeteners. The intake of sugar, in particular sugar sweetened beverages, has been associated with cardio-metabolic conditions.
The objective of the current review was to provide a complete overview of the physiological effects of artificial sweeteners on two main aspects – body weight control and glucose homeostasis and to identify the controversies around the evidence, between the use of different sweeteners. Though, artificial sweeteners have similar sweet palatability like sugars but their metabolic routes are different. Therefore, they produce different effects on body weight and glucose homeostasis via the underlying physiological processes like insulin secretion, adipogenesis, gut microbiota, reward system, insulin secretory capacity and intestinal glucose absorption.
The meta analysis of RCTs or RCTs and prospective cohort studies suggest that artificial sweeteners may have a neutral effect on body weight and glycemic control, respectively, or may have a beneficial effect on long-term body weight regulation. The study also suggested that though majority of human studies showed no significant effects of artificial sweeteners on body weight and glycemic control, the study duration of most of studies was limited. There is a further necessity for long-term, well-controlled human studies that investigate the metabolic effects of different artificial sweeteners on gut microbiota, body weight regulation, and glucose homeostasis.
Read More*
*Redirecting to the external website