Lose weight in a new way: scientists have discovered which drinks are easier to lose weight on

Sweeteners versus pure water

After the country introduced increased excise taxes on sugar added to drinks in the summer, Russian producers switched to its substitutes. In particular, acesulfame and aspartame. Odious doctors hastened to warn consumers about the terrible diseases that await consumers of sweeteners. In particular, TV doctor Alexander Myasnikov spoke about serious “damage to the body.” Meanwhile, scientific evidence suggests the opposite.

Disputes about whether sweeteners are harmful or not have been going on for many years, but there is complete unanimity in the scientific world regarding the harm of sugar. The main danger of its excess consumption is that after certain biochemical processes in the body it is deposited in the form of fat, which leads to excess weight.

Excess weight, in turn, provokes a huge number of diseases, including almost all “diseases of old age,” which include cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases (primarily diabetes mellitus), and oncological pathologies.

Meanwhile, several scientific studies have already been published in the world that speak in favor of replacing refined sugar with sweetener substitutes. And the same aspartame that is widely used in industry is today one of the most thoroughly studied ingredients in the world.

More recently, scientists from the University of Liverpool and the University of Leeds conducted a long-term study to understand the impact of artificially sweetened drinks on weight control. And they came to very interesting conclusions: in the group where they drank water, people lost weight more slowly than in the group where they drank drinks with sweeteners.

The study on the effects of non-nutritive beverages on appetite was conceived and developed in the context of the need to reduce sugar in the diet. The study included a battery of measures to identify the key long-term effects of sweetener use on behavior, appetite and eating habits, as well as weight and other health outcomes.

Of the 493 participants, 246 drank water and 247 drank soft drinks using sweeteners. After 52 weeks, greater weight loss was observed in the sweetened beverage group. Weight loss in the water group was 6.1 kg, compared to 7.5 kg in the beverage group. The researchers note that this difference is not clinically significant, but it does indicate that drinks containing sweeteners do not have a negative effect on weight control.

The authors note that sweetened beverages may be a healthy alternative for weight control. A paper by Professor Jason Halford published in the International Journal of Obesity concludes that drinking non-nutritive sweetened drinks (NNS) does not interfere with weight management, even compared to water. And according to Professor Joe Harrold, “The study documents key long-term effects of sweetener use on behavior, appetite expression and food preferences, as well as weight and other health outcomes. The results confirm previous studies that, compared with water, drinking non-nutritive sweetened beverages does not undermine weight control.”

“Of course, soft drinks using sweeteners cannot be a complete alternative to regular drinking water,” says Maxim Novikov, head of the Union of Juice, Water and Beverage Producers. “However, they can help reduce carbohydrate intake and promote a culture of sensible food consumption.”

As Mikhail Bogomolov, a diabetologist, psychoendocrinologist, President of the Russian Diabetes Association, told MK, sweet taste is associated in the human mind with the red-yellow spectrum of light, with cheerful music, with a good mood and with a decrease in the level of depression: “The need for a sweet taste can be satisfied with non-alcoholic drinks with sweeteners without a significant effect on the corresponding levels of brain neuropeptides, which is important for maintaining a person’s normal psycho-emotional status,” the expert believes.