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Opinion or narrative review

Review of animal and long-term human studies: sweeteners may add to obesity risk

Shearer and colleagues · Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2016

Original title: Artificial sweeteners and metabolic dysregulation: Lessons learned from agriculture and the laboratory.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to harm

Long-term human studies raise concern that sweeteners may add to obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Animal studies suggest sweeteners may promote food intake and weight gain.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Opinion or narrative review
Who or what was studied
animals on farms and in labs, plus long-term human studies
What was tested
Review of artificial sweeteners and weight and metabolism
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders, 2016
Source
PubMed record 27387506. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –An opinion or narrative review: no new data, and no set method for choosing which studies to discuss.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

This paper is not on the ladder. It is a opinion or narrative review, and reviews and opinion pieces discuss studies that are already counted on the steps below.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: body weight

    4

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 2 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    7

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 4 no difference, 1 harm

  4. Population studies

    5

    1 benefit, 4 harm

  5. Blood levels and genes

    1

    1 harm

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Do artificial sweeteners cause weight gain?”

Trials say no; population studies disagree.

Confidence: low. Based on 32 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer
  • Listed with the other papers, but not quoted in the page’s main findings.

Other opinion on this question

See all 32 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads differed. The reviewer checked the abstract and kept the first read. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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