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Population study: one-time survey

Survey of 892 South Asian adults: sweetener use linked to more body fat

Jin and colleagues · Nutrition and health · 2018

Original title: Prevalence of low-calorie sweetener intake in South Asian adults.

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

Twenty-two percent reported sweetener use. Use was linked to more body fat and to higher odds of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. A one-time snapshot cannot show cause.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: one-time survey
Who or what was studied
892 people · 892 South Asian adults living in the US, average age 55
What was tested
People who used low-calorie sweeteners compared with people who did not, at one point in time
What it measured
The question itself: body weight and metabolic health
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No potential conflicts of interest declared.
Journal
Nutrition and health, 2018
Source
PubMed record 30099940. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –A one-time snapshot: it shows a link, not a cause, and cannot show which came first.
  • •892 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: body weight and metabolic health.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •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

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ 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

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  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

Of the other 4 papers on the same step: 1 benefit, 3 harm. This one found harm. It agrees with most of them.

  • Counted on the ladder, but not quoted in the page’s main findings.

Other papers on the same step

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 reviewer corrected 3 fields after reading the abstract. 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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