Surprising research suggests a popular artificial sweetener has the unexpected and unwelcome effect of packing on the pounds. Purdue researchers report that saccharin altered the ability of rats to control their appetites. However, the head of an artificial sweetener trade group scoffed at the findings, saying they don’t necessarily translate to humans. ‘We found that the rats that were getting artificially sweetened yogurt gained more weight and ate more food,’ said study author Susan Swithers, an associate professor of psychological sciences at the Ingestive Behavior Research Institute at Purdue University. ‘The take-home message is that consumption of artificially sweetened products may interfere with an automatic process.’ That process, she said, involves the body’s ability to detect that it will soon be full. ‘We often will stop eating before we’ve been able to absorb all of the calories that come from a meal. One of the reasons we might stop eating is that our experience has taught in the past that, ‘After I eat this food, I’ll feel this full for this long,’ ‘ she explained. It seems to be a subconscious process based on automatic estimations of how much energy certain foods will provide, she said. […]