Does aspartame cause weight gain?

mylittlerainbow wrote: »

Sounds like it's about more than calories here. I just read an article (not sure how authoritative it is but will share a link here) that says that it can increase food cravings and doesn't send a signal to stop eating, so you have to continue logging everything and resist eating more just because you might feel hungrier. And the article also said that it encourages your body to store fat, the opposite of the effect we'd want it to have. So just maybe?? Just keep doing your logging diligently and keep drinking your water and see if things level off.

https://globalhealing.com/natural-health/aspartame-makes-you-gain-weight/

Hogwash...

From the articles quoted in the article (these are the references from the bottom of the article)
Reference 1 - none of the studies that the referenced article links used controls on calories, so there is no direct link to artificial sweeteners causing any weight gain in the participants. Any conclusions that the author makes are simply guess work
Reference 2 - a rat study (first issue), and quoted directly from the abstract in the study - ' In conclusion, greater weight gain was promoted by the use of saccharin or aspartame, compared with sucrose, and this weight gain was unrelated to caloric intake. We speculate that a decrease in energy expenditure or increase in fluid retention might be involved.' - apply Occam's razor (look for the simplest explanation) - the rats got less energy from the artificial sweeteners so they had less energy to expend and moved less. Also, the study does NOT look at ft percentages in the two groups of rats, so how can anyone claim this study points to fat gain???
References 3,4,5 - interesting effects, but the problem is that there can be no NET fat storage when the body is in a caloric deficit. Period. The body cannot make energy from nothing - the source of the energy either comes from the foods that we eat or from the body's stores.