The Use of Low-Calorie Sweeteners by Adults: Impact on Weight Management
Abstract
The application of low-calorie sweeteners (LCS) in foods and beverages has increased over the past 35 y. At the same time, many characteristics of the American diet have changed, including variations in fat and carbohydrate content and composition, increased nutrient additions, and new dietary patterns due to changing lifestyles and attitudes toward food and the changing cost of food. During this same time period, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased from ~30 to 70% of adults in the United States. Clearly, these trends lead to a variety of hypotheses and efforts to explain the role of LCS in this association. The aim of this review is to gain clarity on the role of LCS in weight management and their impact on diet quality. In addition, because the majority of studies aimed at identifying associations between LCS and these outcomes are based on observational data, the pitfalls in designing and evaluating data from observational studies are also discussed. We conclude that there is no evidence that LCS can be claimed to be a cause of higher body weights in adults. Similarly, evidence supporting a role for LCS in weight management is lacking. Due to the confounders in most observational studies, randomized controlled trials are needed to advance understanding. Footnotes ↵ 3 Author disclosures: G. H. Anderson has received consulting fees, honoraria, donations, and unrestricted grants from food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies and from government and nonprofit entities. He is director of the University-Industry Program in Food Safety, Nutrition and Regulatory Affairs at the University of Toronto, which currently includes 14 private-sector members. He has published research on both caloric and low-calorie sweeteners. D. B. Allison has received grants, honoraria, donations, and consulting fees from numerous food, beverage, pharmaceutical companies, and other commercial, government, and nonprofit entities with interests in obesity and nutrition, and receives royalties from obesity-related books. J. Foreyt has received consulting fees, honoraria, and unrestricted grants from food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies and from government and nonprofit sources. M. Sigman-Grant declares no conflicts of interest. ↵ 1 Published in a supplement to The Journal of Nutrition . Presented at the conference Low-Calorie Sweeteners, Appetite and Weight Control: What the Science Tells Us, held in Washington, DC, April 7–8, 2011. The conference was sponsored by the Committee on Low-calorie Sweeteners of the International Life Sciences Institute North America. The views expressed in these papers are not necessarily those of the supplement coordinator or guest editors. The Supplement Coordinator for this supplement was Adam Drewnowski, University of Washington. Supplement Coordinator disclosures: Adam Drewnowski received travel reimbursement for participation in the Low-Calorie Sweeteners Conference. The supplement is the responsibility of the Guest Editor to whom the Editor of The Journal of Nutrition has delegated supervision of both technical conformity to the published regulations of The Journal of Nutrition and general oversight of the scientific merit of each article. The Guest Editor for this supplement was Sibylle Kranz. Guest Editor disclosure: Sibylle Kranz has received funding from The Kellogg Company to conduct research projects unrelated to this supplement material. She has also been an invited speaker at a roundtable discussion funded by The Kellogg Company. Publication costs for this supplement were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This publication must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not attributable to the sponsors or the publisher, Editor, or Editorial Board of The Journal of Nutrition . ↵ 2 Supported by the Committee on Low-Calorie Sweeteners of the North American Branch of the International Life Sciences Institute. G. H. Anderson and J. Foreyt received a modest honorarium for their participation in the workshop and development of the manuscript. All authors received travel funding to attend the workshop. This is a free access article, distributed under terms ( http://www.nutrition.org/publications/guidelines-and-policies/license/ ) which permit unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents Free Access Article This Article First published May 9, 2012 , doi: 10.3945/jn.111.149617 J. Nutr. June 1, 2012 vol. 142 no. 6 1163s-1169s Free via Open Access: Free Free via Creative Commons: CC » Abstract Free Free Full Text Free Full Text (PDF) Free All Versions of this Article: jn.111.149617v1 142/6/1163s most recent Purchase Article Classifications Supplement: Low-Calorie Sweeteners and Weight Control—What the Science Tells Us Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Article Usage Statistics Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Anderson, G. H. Articles by Allison, D. B. PubMed PubMed citation Articles by Anderson, G. H. Articles by Allison, D. B. Related Content Load related web page information Current Issue June 2012, 142 (6) Alert me to new issues of J. Nutr. 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