Study Questions Artificially Sweetened Beverage Research

Researchers at the Imperial College London advised against policies that promote the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages after finding conflicting and insufficient data.

The researchers performed a review of recently published studies that evaluated the effects of artificially sweetened beverages on global health. Their findings showed conflicting data on the relationship between consuming artificially sweetened beverages and weight loss, and on the connection between gluten intolerance and artificially sweetened beverages.
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According to their findings, multiple studies are industry-sponsored and several authors did not properly disclose conflicts of interests that would influence the results of the study. Systematic reviews showed that studies funded by the artificially sweetened beverage industries were more likely to report favorable outcomes, and funding from competitors were more likely to report negative outcomes.

In addition, the high consumption and production of artificially sweetened beverages produces large amounts of waste and cumulative chemical pollution, which raises concerns for food safety and human health.

Overall, the researchers recommend artificially sweetened beverages be subjected to the same tax, advertising, and policies as sugar sweetened beverages, and for more rigorous and unbiased research to be conducted to determine the long-term health and environmental effects of consuming artificially sweetened beverages.  

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Borges MC, Louzada ML, de Sá TH, et al. Artificially sweetened beverages and the response to the global obesity crisis [published online January 3, 2017]. PLOS. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002195.