This Med Headlines article describes a recent study involving lab animals who gained more weight when they were exposed to artificial sweeteners than to plain old sugar.

The study was performed by the Ingestive Behavior Research Center at Purdue University and compared weight gain in rodents who ate artificially sweetened yogurt to those who consumed sugar sweetened yogurt.  The sugar fed rodents gained less.  “The study surmised that by breaking the connection between a sweet sensation and high-calorie food, the use of saccharin changes the body’s ability to regulate intake.”

As the article points out, the obesity epidemic has continued in full force during the introduction of artificially sweetened foods into the food chain.

“The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to body weight gain that would not occur if a person consumed the very same food sweetened with higher calorie sugar, the authors wrote.”

We previously reported on the possible link between diet drinks and heart disease here.