# What's the skinny on artificial sweeteners?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-skinny-on-artificial-sweeteners/256420>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 22, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-skinny-on-artificial-sweeteners/256420 "2004-07-22T22:15:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-skinny-on-artificial-sweeteners/256420/1 "2004-07-22T22:15:16Z")

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OK, so, among all the other assorted reasons that artifical sweeteners are supposed to be bad for you, now they’re responsible for weight gain/failure to lose weight.

Seems that the brain perceives the sweetness, expects calories to accompany it, then realizes the numbers don’t add up and induces hunger to try to make up the short fall, the end result being that the person actually ends up consuming more calories by eating more than they would have if they’d just gone ahead and eaten sugar-sweetened soft drinks/candy/whatever. Or something like that.

I actually heard a few years back something similar about aspertame- that you end up consuming more calories because it causes carbohydrate cravings.

Can anybody point me to the actual research on artificial sweeteners and calorie consumption?

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-skinny-on-artificial-sweeteners/256420/2 "2004-07-23T02:57:16Z")

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I don’t have any “research” on Aspartame, but here’s an earlier thread with some good links inside:

> **[Help me understand the "Aspartame" debate.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=239263)**
>
> I’m hearing that Aspartame is “very, very, bad”. Apparently it causes a long list of health complications and can affect you after anywhere from 5-40 years of consumption. Sounds like hooey to me. Couldn’t the same argument be made about just...

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**Author:** ![Stan\_Doubt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@Stan\_Doubt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Doubt)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-skinny-on-artificial-sweeteners/256420/3 "2004-07-23T03:47:33Z")

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A study that correlates number of additional calories consumed (by people on fad diets) with ingestion of artificial sweeteners… You ought to be ready to explain assumptions inherent with this work.