Diet soda drinkers, we have some news you might not like about your beloved beverage: new research shows a link between artificial sweeteners and hunger. Previous research had already connected diet soda with increased appetite and calorie consumption and gaining more belly fat than people who didn’t drink diet soda. But now Australian scientists think they’ve figured out why fake sugar makes us react like this.

Researchers gave fruit flies food with sucralose, which is Splenda, and they ate 30% more calories than the fruit flies who were given food sweetened with table sugar. Looking at the flies’ nerve impulses showed that the brain’s reward centers associate sweet tastes with the expectation of a calorie blast. Since the food sweetened with fake sugar provides fewer calories than the brain expected, it wants more food.

The scientists did the experiments again using mice and got similar results. The mice with fake sugar sweetened food for seven days ate 50% more calories than the mice who ate real sugar, and they had the same nerve impulses.

According to “Scientific American,” it’s too soon to fully apply these finds to people, but the case against artificial sweeteners is getting stronger all the time. But that doesn’t mean we should all switch just switch to regular Coke, because regular sugar isn’t good for us either.

Source: NY Magazine