Digestery
Diet and food › Sweeteners and Weight › Studies

Randomized trial · measured lab tests or safety

Trial in 21 adults: swallowed sucralose raised blood sugar; insulin effects differed by weight

Nichol and colleagues · Nutrients · 2019

Original title: Effects of Sucralose Ingestion versus Sucralose Taste on Metabolic Responses to an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test in Participants with Normal Weight and Obesity: A Randomized Crossover Trial.

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

Mixed

Compared with water, swallowed sucralose raised blood sugar area under the curve by 30 ± 10% in both groups. Insulin response differed by weight group. Insulin sensitivity rose 52 ± 20% in normal-weight people but not in people with obesity.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
21 people · 21 adults without diabetes: 10 with normal weight and 11 with obesity
What was tested
Sucralose swallowed, sucralose tasted and spat out, or water, before a sugar tolerance test
What it measured
Lab tests or markers
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No conflict of interest declared.
Journal
Nutrients, 2019
Source
PubMed record 31877631. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • –Small: 21 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • –Measured lab tests or markers, which stand in for body weight and metabolic health. A better marker does not always mean better 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

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  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

Of the other 6 papers on the same step: 1 benefit, 4 no difference, 1 harm. This one found mixed. It differs from most of them.

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 1 field 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
Not yet. Required before search engines may list this page.

Spot an error? Email a flag with a link to your source, or use the form on the question page.