Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners: Seeking the Sweet Truth

Abstract

Caloric sweetener intake has increased significantly around the world. There has been a shift toward intake of calorically sweetened beverages as a larger proportion of caloric sweeteners. Beverage calories are ingested differently from food calories. We do not reduce food intake when we consume caloric beverages; thus the universal finding that increased caloric beverage intake is linked with growing adiposity and metabolic abnormalities. Non-nutritive sweetener intake has grown greatly; however, the impact of this on long-term health remains to be understood.