While artificial sweeteners may be able to confuse your taste buds, the suspicion is growing that your brain is not so easily fooled.
In one study, researchers had eight cyclists perform 60-minute workouts on a stationary bike while measuring their work rate. During workouts on separate days they were told to rinse their mouth with a solution of either glucose or saccharin, without swallowing either one. The glucose mouth rinse improved the cyclists’ performance by a small but consistent amount compared to saccharin.
Later, they were asked to rinse their mouths with either saccharin alone or saccharin plus a caloric (but non-sweet) sugar called maltodextrin. The cyclists did slightly better when they rinsed their mouths with maltodextrin, even though both solutions carried identical saccharin taste.
When scientists performed fMRI scans on the athletes, they found that the combination of saccharin and maltodextrin activated two reward-associated brain areas — the striatum and anterior cingulate — which saccharin alone failed to touch.
In another study by neuroscientist Paul Smeets, volunteers were given two version of a beverage, one sweetened with sugar, the other with a blend of artificial sweeteners. The brain scans showed that the artificially sweetened beverage failed to activate an area of the brain called the caudate nucleus, which is an area associated with rewards.
A recent study by Guido Frank, a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado in Denver looked into how the brain responds to sucralose (artificial sweetener) and sucrose. He gave the sweetener and the sugar to 12 women, adjusting the concentrations so that the sweetness of the two matched. When he looked at their brain responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), he saw clear differences.
These studies suggest that the brain has a way of detecting calories while food is still in your mouth.
[Source]
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Chapter: Health, Sugar ::
3 February 2010
