Your brain probably knows when you’re eating artificial sweetener

Your brain probably knows when your sugar is artificial, or your soda is diet (and it probably isn’t happy about it).

Anyone who has ever tried to save a few calories by opting for a ‘diet food’ knows that oftentimes, you end up snacking on something else an hour later. Popular theory behind this is that the body is not fooled by the artificial sweeteners contained in diet foods. Researchers from the University of Michigan set out to determine how it is that the body determines between real and artificial sugars.

Though the study was conducted using fruit flies as test subjects, the same “molecular machinery” is present in humans, leading researchers to believe that the same behaviours apply to people. Though it may be hard to believe, fruit flies and humans share approximately 75 per cent of disease-causing genes.

Researchers deprived the fruit flies of food for several hours before allowing them to feed on either diet, zero-calorie sweetener, or regular sugar. In the flies that licked the regular sugar, six groups of neurons were activated that released hormone messages received by the gut. This hormone then proceeded to fuel digestion. In the flies that licked the artificial sweetener, this hormone was not produced and no digestive reaction ensued.

If human brains do indeed behave the same way, this finding explains why many people paradoxically gain weight while trying to diet by eating foods which contain artificial sweeteners. Their bodies continue to send the message that they’re hungry because it doesn’t recognize artificial sweeteners. This causes them to overeat.

To the person without a science background, to put it simply, our bodies were meant to process and break down caloric energy. It just doesn’t recognize artificial sweeteners that don’t provide it with that energy.

So if you’re craving a fizzy drink, we recommend sparkling water with a slice of lemon or lime. Not only is this yummy, your brain and body won’t get confused.