Consumption of sweeteners at different stages of life: effects on body mass, food and drink intake in male and female Wistar rats

Abstract

The consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners has increased in the last decades. However, there are doubts about its consumption and its impact on body mass and metabolic alterations. For this reason, this study investigates the effects of the consumption of nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners on body mass in different life stages of male and female Wistar rats: Childhood, adolescence, young adult, adulthood, and aged. For this purpose, 8 groups of male and female rats were used (10 per group/gender): sucrose 10%, glucose 14%, fructose 7%, acesulfame K 0.05%, aspartame:acesulfame mixture 1.55%, sucralose 0.017%, saccharin 0.033%, and a control group. Only in aged male rats (504 days) there were significant differences in body mass. In both genders, there were differences in food, drink, and energy intake along all life stage. It is concluded that non-nutritive sweeteners when consumed together with a balanced diet did not cause a greater body mass gain.

Keywords:

• Body mass
• food intake
• energy intake
• non-nutritive sweeteners
• nutritive sweeteners
• Wistar rats

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Comorbidity means more than one disease or condition is present in the same person at the same time. Conditions described as comorbidities are often chronic or long-term conditions

Additional information

Funding

This research was financed by the Support Program for Research and Technological Innovation Projects (PAPIIT, in Spanish) through the project IN217619 of the General Directorate of Academic Personnel of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in Spanish). First author received a scholarship from Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACYT, in Spanish) for graduate studies. Also, the financial support of UNAM through the Support Program for Research and Graduate Studies of the Faculty of Chemistry (Programa de Apoyo para la Investigación y el Posgrado, PAIP, Facultad de Química, in Spanish) is acknowledged (50009067).