Sweet – sugar doesn’t cause weight gain

Women consuming sugary drinks reduce their energy intake elsewhere to balance out their energy intake according to a new study which aimed to determine the effects of adding sucrose to the diet.

Fifty-three overweight women were given either sucrose or aspartame sweetened drinks and asked to consumed a 25cl bottle at four specified times of the day for five weeks – a baseline week and four test weeks. Researchers from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh wanted to determine the long term effect of adding sucrose to the diet – whether it caused weight gain, carbohydrate cravings or adverse moods.

The women ate, drank and exercised as normal, and kept a food diary and recorded how they felt after consuming the drink and researchers discovered that while the drinks comprised around 20% of the women’s daily energy intake, the women reduced their energy intake to balance the calories in the drink.

“Widespread publicity about the supposed harmful effects of sugar may make such effects more likely, as believing sugar to be harmful may encourage negative emotions after eating sugary food and lead to the abstinence violation effect,” she said, “In other words, knowing that you’re drinking sugary drinks, while believing that they’re harmful, might result in the derailing of generally healthy low-fat diet.”

The findings suggests that because it is widely believed that sugary drinks are bad and part of an unhealthy diet, people go on to behave accordingly. Professor Marie Reid believes the negative effect of sugar on food choice and mood may be psychological.

 “Sugar in moderation plays a neutral role in the balanced diet, but an emotionally charged role in the psychology of food choice,” Reid said.

The study – funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and The Sugar Bureau – replicated a similar study conducted by Reid in 2007 with normal weight women.