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In part 3 of this Exclusive Interview, Judith Wylie-Rosett shares the results of trials studying the effects of using sweeteners in a conversation with Diabetes in Control Publisher Steve Freed.
Judith Wylie-Rosett, EdD, RD is a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY.
Transcript of this video segment:
Freed: And what is the evidence regarding using low calorie sweeteners for weight loss from randomized clinical trials and control trials?
Wylie-Rosett: There have been several randomized clinical trials. And they — when there’s a behavioral program — now, most of these trials have compared non-nutritive sweeteners to water. So, you’re not comparing it to if they consumed the equal amount of beverage as a sugar sweetened beverage. There’s a weight loss but there have been a couple of studies that didn’t find weight loss, so it’s not as dramatic as one might think. But it is pretty strong evidence that it can be effective if carefully planned in weight loss. But most of the trials are fairly short, they’re like three-month trials. What we don’t know is what happens over a longer period of time, because there are no 10-year trials, there are no five-year trials, I think there are virtually no one-year trials.
Freed: So, how does the evidence from observational studies regarding the relationship between low caloric sweeteners differ from the randomized trials?
Wylie-Rosett: Interestingly, if you asked people what their weight history has been for the past 10 years and people who consumed no diet products, no low calorie sweetened products, are more likely to be weight neutral. And if you go out with greater consumption, there’s a greater likelihood that somebody may have either gained 50 pounds or lost 50 pounds both directions, but the spread is enormous. So, we know that people — and I would interpret that to mean that people who want to lose weight — some people have lost weight and use them to lose weight. And people who have gained weight, maybe used them for trying to lose weight, because it’s not a homogeneous population needless to say. So, it’s sort of a mixed picture in terms of the observational studies.