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https://www.newswise.com/articles/no-evi...references
EXCERPTS: A newly published narrative review in the journal Nutrients brings together findings from three large European research consortia — SWEET, SWITCH, and Sweet Tooth — to address longstanding questions about whether non-nutritive sweeteners (NNSs) and sweet-tasting foods in general affect body weight, metabolic health, and people's taste preferences over time.
The review, led by Eva Marija Cad of the University of Ljubljana and Wageningen University & Research, alongside colleagues from the University of Leeds and other institutions in the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Belgium, was developed in connection with a 2025 webinar series hosted by the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS).
[...] Public health guidance on sugar substitutes has been inconsistent. Some bodies, including the World Health Organization, have cautioned against relying on non-nutritive sweeteners for weight control and have suggested reducing sweetness in the diet overall — regardless of its source.
Other professional groups, including several in the UK, view NNSs as a legitimate tool for cutting sugar intake. Much of the disagreement traces back to a divide between randomized controlled trials, which tend to show neutral or favorable effects, and observational studies, which more often report associations with health risks — associations that can be distorted by the fact that people already at higher metabolic risk tend to consume more sweeteners in the first place.
To help resolve some of this uncertainty, the authors focused specifically on evidence from three large European multi-year, multi-center randomized trials designed to isolate cause-and-effect relationships under real-world conditions.
[...] Taken together, the SWEET, SWITCH, and Sweet Tooth consortia offer some of the most rigorous experimental evidence to date on this topic. The findings suggest that swapping sugar for non-nutritive sweeteners can be a useful tool in weight management strategies without apparent harm to metabolic health, and that broader differences in how sweet a person's diet is do not appear to meaningfully affect body weight, biomarkers, or taste preferences over the periods studied... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: A newly published narrative review in the journal Nutrients brings together findings from three large European research consortia — SWEET, SWITCH, and Sweet Tooth — to address longstanding questions about whether non-nutritive sweeteners (NNSs) and sweet-tasting foods in general affect body weight, metabolic health, and people's taste preferences over time.
The review, led by Eva Marija Cad of the University of Ljubljana and Wageningen University & Research, alongside colleagues from the University of Leeds and other institutions in the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Belgium, was developed in connection with a 2025 webinar series hosted by the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS).
[...] Public health guidance on sugar substitutes has been inconsistent. Some bodies, including the World Health Organization, have cautioned against relying on non-nutritive sweeteners for weight control and have suggested reducing sweetness in the diet overall — regardless of its source.
Other professional groups, including several in the UK, view NNSs as a legitimate tool for cutting sugar intake. Much of the disagreement traces back to a divide between randomized controlled trials, which tend to show neutral or favorable effects, and observational studies, which more often report associations with health risks — associations that can be distorted by the fact that people already at higher metabolic risk tend to consume more sweeteners in the first place.
To help resolve some of this uncertainty, the authors focused specifically on evidence from three large European multi-year, multi-center randomized trials designed to isolate cause-and-effect relationships under real-world conditions.
[...] Taken together, the SWEET, SWITCH, and Sweet Tooth consortia offer some of the most rigorous experimental evidence to date on this topic. The findings suggest that swapping sugar for non-nutritive sweeteners can be a useful tool in weight management strategies without apparent harm to metabolic health, and that broader differences in how sweet a person's diet is do not appear to meaningfully affect body weight, biomarkers, or taste preferences over the periods studied... (MORE - missing details)
