Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the low-cal-sweetener-makes-you-fat? dept.

A report posted to PLoS|ONE suggests low-calorie sweetener use may not be an effective means of weight control. The full article is available at that link; here is the abstract:

Introduction

Low-calorie sweetener use for weight control has come under increasing scrutiny as obesity, especially abdominal obesity, remain entrenched despite substantial low-calorie sweetener use. We evaluated whether chronic low-calorie sweetener use is a risk factor for abdominal obesity.

Participants and Methods

We used 8268 anthropometric measurements and 3096 food diary records with detailed information on low-calorie sweetener consumption in all food products, from 1454 participants (741 men, 713 women) in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging collected from 1984 to 2012 with median follow-up of 10 years (range: 0–28 years). At baseline, 785 were low-calorie sweetener non-users (51.7% men) and 669 participants were low-calorie sweetener users (50.1% men). Time-varying low-calorie sweetener use was operationalized as the proportion of visits since baseline at which low-calorie sweetener use was reported. We used marginal structural models to determine the association between baseline and time-varying low-calorie sweetener use with longitudinal outcomes—body mass index, waist circumference, obesity and abdominal obesity—with outcome status assessed at the visit following low-calorie sweetener ascertainment to minimize the potential for reverse causality. All models were adjusted for year of visit, age, sex, age by sex interaction, race, current smoking status, dietary intake (caffeine, fructose, protein, carbohydrate, and fat), physical activity, diabetes status, and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension score as confounders.

Results

With median follow-up of 10 years, low-calorie sweetener users had 0.80 kg/m2 higher body mass index (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.17–1.44), 2.6 cm larger waist circumference (95% CI, 0.71–4.39), 36.7% higher prevalence (prevalence ratio = 1.37; 95% CI, 1.10–1.69) and 53% higher incidence (hazard ratio = 1.53; 95% CI 1.10–2.12) of abdominal obesity than low-calorie sweetener non-users.

Conclusions

Low-calorie sweetener use is independently associated with heavier relative weight, a larger waist, and a higher prevalence and incidence of abdominal obesity suggesting that low-calorie sweetener use may not be an effective means of weight control.

I'm curious if there was a difference in outcome based on which low-calorie sweetener was used. Here they lumped (pun intended) them all together:

Low-calorie sweetener consumption was noted when consumption of food or drink containing low-calorie sweetener (aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame potassium, or sucralose) was recorded in the dietary record. This collection method identified low-calorie sweeteners found in all food products, not just diet soda.

Separately, does anyone know if the use of artificial sweeteners reduces the risk of dental cavities?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:00AM (2 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:00AM (#771789) Journal

    I don't have time to dig through the stats here. I have no doubt that sweeteners may have some bad effects. But I wondered how they controlled for the fact that it's likely that people who are already using sweeteners likely are already more obese to begin with.

    So I tracked down the initial conditions of the study groups in TFA:

    At baseline, low-calorie sweetener users compared to non-users were on average 2 years younger, 59.5 ±15.8 years versus 61.8 ±15.8 years, respectively. Low-calorie sweetener users also had higher BMI, 26.4 ± 4.5 kg/m2 compared to 25.3 ± 4.0 kg/m2, as well as higher WC, 88.1 ±13.2 cm compared to 86.2 ± 12.0 cm. In addition, the low-calorie sweetener users had higher prevalence of obesity, abdominal obesity and type 2 diabetes.

    If I understand this right, the sweetener users started at their baseline measurements already with a BMI that was 1.1 higher and waist circumference that was 1.9 cm higher compared to non-users. The summary states in outcomes at follow-up that the sweetener users had 0.8 BMI higher and 2.6 cm larger waist circumference compared to the non-users.

    Unless I'm reading this wrong, it looks like the sweetener users started out with worse traits and ended up with similarly worse traits (though not much worse compared to the non-sweetener group than when they started). It's clear that sweeteners weren't helping much, but how big is the actual magnitude of the supposed negative effect? Plus, one needs to consider the fact that those using sweeteners at the beginning of the study (at baseline) likely also felt like they were experiencing weight struggles moreso than those who weren't using sweeteners. (Note the higher incidents of diabetes, etc.) Is it any surprise that such people -- which already were at a disadvantage -- ended up worse at the end? (Though again, seemingly not a lot worse compared to the control group than when they started? I'd actually expect them to come out even worse than they did due to confounding factors alone.)

    The study seemed to try to control for this somehow, though they explicitly say they did NOT control for the initial differences in BMI etc. for the two groups. I don't have time to dig into the stats to figure out how this all worked... Perhaps someone else can. But on the surface, I think reporting the conclusions as stated in the summary without noting the initial study groups already had divergent physician characteristics at baseline is a little misleading for a summary.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:03AM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:03AM (#771790) Journal

    (In last sentence, I meant "divergent physical characteristics"...damn autocorrect.)

  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday December 09 2018, @05:17AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday December 09 2018, @05:17AM (#771819) Journal

    I thought the same thing, except without the detail you went into, but basically, most people who drink diet soda are typically those worried about their weight (fn1) to begin with so they already sort of self-selected for being overweight due to other reasons.

    (fn1) sugar tastes so much better than the alternative sweeteners, I highly doubt a significant portion of users actually prefer them over sugar, they just don't want extra calories.