People who consume artificial sweeteners in an effort to lose or manage weight might actually be making things worse, according to a recent study published in Nature Metabolism.
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A team of scientists based in Germany and the United States found that sucralose—a widely used sugar substitute—increases activity in the hypothalamus, a brain region involved in appetite regulation.
Researchers from the German Center for Diabetes Research and the University of Southern California reported that tests involving 75 participants revealed that sucralose enhanced "functional connectivity between the hypothalamus and brain regions involved in motivation and somatosensory processing." These findings suggest that “non-caloric sweeteners may influence key mechanisms in the hypothalamus responsible for regulating appetite.”
Kathleen Alana Page from the Keck School of Medicine at USC explained, “Sucralose confuses the brain by providing a sweet taste without the expected caloric energy.”
Sucralose was also found to have no effect on the hormones that signal to the brain that calories have been consumed, which help reduce hunger. Page warned that this effect was more pronounced in individuals with obesity, suggesting they may feel hungry even when they are not.
She added, “If your body expects a certain amount of calories from the sweeteners but doesn’t receive them, this could alter the brain's programming for craving these substances over time.”
