Diet Drinks Fool Your Body's Metabolism

When we go on a diet, we often add artificially sweetened drinks and low-calorie dishes to help us meet our goal, but we may be tricking our metabolism into piling on even more weight and triggering diabetes, says a new study from Yale University.

The sweetness in naturally sweetened foods tells the body the food contains energy, and the sweeter the food, the more energy it usually contains. But when a beverage is either too sweet or not sweet enough for the number of calories it contains, the body's normal metabolic response is disrupted.

The response explains the association between artificial sweeteners and diabetes discovered in earlier studies.

"A calorie is not a calorie," said senior author Dana Small, professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine.

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