How the gut differentiates artificial sweeteners from sugars in mice | Hacker News Reader

How the gut differentiates artificial sweeteners from sugars in mice

the-scientist.com

84 pointspseudolus96 comments

> Animals and humans prefer sugar over artificial sweeteners in experiments, and that could be because a specific gut sensor cell…

I have an alternative hypothesis: It is because sugar tastes better. In your mouth, on your tongue. Evolutionarily, this could be explained by sugar not being a calorically worthless synthetic compound that happens to taste sweet and may act as a laxative.

As an example, many sweeteners are known for their crappy aftertaste.

That wouldn't exactly distinguish them from sugar.

Do you mean High Fructose Corn Syrup?

No.

Stevia's weird herbal aftertaste makes it good for root beer, though.

I think monkfruit is the best alternative sweetener I've tasted.

try erythritol. it's very similar to monkfruit, and cheaper everywhere I've looked.

It’s 60% as sweet as sugar, while monkfruit is several times as sweet. And it behaves different when heated. But unlike monkfruit, it’s legal in the EU ;)

I mean, I don't really add sweeteners to things myself so I'm just judging ingredient labels.

Was going to comment on sugar alcohols' well known… laxative effects, but apparently erythritol is better about that so that's interesting.

I love it in cola. It’s a perfect fit, and I’m sad that it’s very rare to find stevia sweetened sugar-free cola (so far I found one in Germany, and they apparently decided that normal coke is not sweet enough…)

Note that Stevia is a problem for people who have had kidney stones. It contains high amounts of Oxalate, which is the chemical that is at the core of the most common form of kidney stone.

Spinach and Almonds also contain a lot of Oxalate.

Ask me how I know.

If basic search results can be believed: A 100 gram serving of spinach has 645mg of oxalate. A one ounce serving of almonds has 122. Replacing an ounce of sugar with stevia gives you 6mg.

Stevia is high in oxalate per gram, but it's hundreds of times sweeter than sugar. How low do you need to go? I see one site recommending staying under 200mg of oxalate per day.

I target 0mg of Oxalate whenever possible, because I know that there are many hidden sources of Oxalate that I cannot reasonably detect or prevent.

Oyster mushrooms too, apparently.

There's a new one called Reb M. Most stevia extracts are Reb A because it's found in high concentrations in Stevia. Reb M has less of an aftertaste and tastes more like sugar than Reb A. But it's expensive to produce because it's < 1% of the steviods in Stevia. 3 methods are changing the story here. (1) producing reb m through fermentation. Purecane does this and is available on Amazon right now. (2) breeding stevia plants that have higher concentrations of reb m. (3) converting reb a into reb m using enzymes

Some of the newer formulations aren't half bad. Starting with Coke Zero, but now things like Dr Pepper and Pepsi have 'Zero' versions that are surprisingly good. I haven't dug into what they changed to make it work. The bottle of Pepsi Zero sitting in front of me says it still uses aspartame, but it doesn't have that bitter aftertaste I've come to associate with anything sweetened with aspartame.

I'm curious why virtually all soda labels I know of went to a new better tasting "zero" branding at exactly the same time

diet is now a bad word, zero isn’t, so now we’re all zero and not diet. obesity solved

My understanding was more that Coke Zero was originally targeted at men, who apparently viewed "diet" sodas as being for women. [0]

"We're positioning Coke Zero as a defender and celebrator of guy enjoyment."

It doesn't hurt that it's a chance to reformulate without people complaining about the change like "New Coke" (which was allegedly based on the Diet Coke of the time[1]) and so the Zero branding has likely expanded across the Coca-Cola lineup and other brands to expand that reach and introduce changes - and incidentally give them a chance to mess with their agreements with bottlers the same way as when they switched to high-fructose corn syrup [2] [3].

[0] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/should-mens-products-fear-a-woman...

[1] https://casetext.com/case/coca-cola-bottling-co-v-coca-cola-...

[2] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Real_Thing/jfGzHxGn...

[3] https://www.pressreader.com/usa/houston-chronicle-sunday/201...

It's weird, I prefer Diet Coke over Coke Zero. Unlike most Diet versions of sodas, Diet Coke is a different formula from regular Coke.

I don't find that weird - if I'm going to be drinking a coke (of whatever flavor), caffeine-free Diet Coke is my preference over regular/Zero. It is a different formula, even if it only comes down to the blend of sweeteners. Obviously I don't know the actual formulas, but each has a different blend of sweeteners based on the labels, and now I've added "The Real Thing" to my reading list. Different people prefer different blends, like the other commenters who prefer monkfruit, erythritol or stevia.

Diet Coke is the New Coke formula, but with artificial sweetener instead of sugar.

They use aspartame as well as acesulfame potassium which is 200x sweeter than sugar.

But they've used this combination for a long time as far as I know. So why the difference?

There was a period in which CCC experimented with sucralose instead of aspartame+acesulfame P, as I recall the "diet coke" got sucralose and the "coke zero" got aspartame+acesulfame P. But they went back to only one thing, and ditched the sucralose variant.

Lots of research and engineering. Diet coke has to taste like diet coke now, customers expect and want that taste specifically. Coke zero was developed from the ground up to try and taste like coke. It's very much a working soda that sees updates as food science technology improves to try and get it ever closer to standard coke taste. It was most recently reformulated in 2021 actually.

The Pepsi cherry zero sugar tastes exactly like the sugar version.

*for some people.

Artificial sweeteners are not sugar and only taste "exactly like" sugar to some percentage of the population. Hence all the different sweeteners. So count yourself lucky that pepsi zero does not taste awful to you.

First random article about it on google:

https://www.phillymag.com/be-well-philly/2013/08/22/study-fa...

Yep, it’s a bit like how cilantro tastes awful to some people and not others.

I haven't tried that, but I do regularly drink Pepsi Zero and I'm pretty happy with it. Enough that I switched from being a Coke Zero drinker.

More recently, I tried the Dr Pepper Zero and I like it very much as well. I have long been a fan of real Dr Pepper, but I just don't want that much sugar in my life. Diet Dr Pepper is gross, though I know people who like it. Dr Pepper Zero is close enough to the real thing that I don't feel like I'm missing out. I even inadvertently bought a pack of real Dr Pepper (the bottles are the same color!) a few months back and drank one without realizing I was drinking the full sugar version. That's quite a compliment to Snapple for their formula.

I dislike it for a completely different reason: As a diabetic I've drank diet versions all my life. The taste difference between regular en the older diet versions is big enough to taste which comes in handy when you get a non descriptive beverage somewhere. With zero versions this advantage is (mostly) gone

Excuse my ignorance, but is there any kind of at-table testing you could do to determine whether it contains sugar? Almost like a dip-test?

I think soda with sugar is disgustingly sweet, but I like the taste of aspartame.

I absolutely can't stand the mouthfeel for "sugar" sodas, both the real cane sugar and HFCS variants. It's disgusting. All these newer "zero" versions have pretty much nailed the taste without the gross mouthfeel.

I have always actually preferred the taste of Diet Coke to regular coke.

And the taste of Coke Zero over both, in my case.

Yea I like that as well over regular

I always thought it would be interesting if someone released a 24-can case of a particular soft drink that started with the full, sweetened version and then gradually decreased can-by-can to the diet equivalent. Might be a journey in weaning yourself off sugar in drinks if you drank them in order.

I suspect a country like China could do this for ‘the greater good’ without anyone knowing for a number of things.

I'd rather have the sugar or not at all then the bad taste of diet soda.

I'm someone that prefers the zero/no sugar stuff for it does not leave sticky residu on my teeth. I also did not do a side-by-side comparison but in my opinion the aftertaste of (specifically pepsi zero) is better than the sugary version.

where do u live? if it is in usa it is true because they use corn syrup. other parts of world has normal sugar in it.

Considering I have the exact opposite, this is highly personal not fundamental.

I think it's nearly impossible for an average person to taste the difference between Coke Zero and regular Coke. It's not jsut a little sugar in soft drinks, it's an enormous amount and it's worth switching to diet.

Really? My immediate reaction to Coke Zero was revulsion, and I can't understand how people could have problems recognising the difference.

The only cola I've ever had where the diet version that has been close to fooling me was RC Cola. I think overall the colas with a stronger caramel taste like RC and Dr Pepper tends to fare better, because there are other taste notes that help obscure the lack of sugar.

If I was going to switch to a diet soda, Coke Zero would certainly not be it.

They taste so unbelievably different I don’t know how you can have this take.

When was the last time you tried it? I think they changed the formula recently.

NB: I'm referring to Coke Zero, not Diet Coke

>I think it's nearly impossible for an average person to taste the difference between Coke Zero and regular Coke.

What? It's pretty damn obvious, and nothing like one another.

> I think it's nearly impossible

I have actually tested this blind and from memory at least ten of the thirty or so people asked could identify it (artificial sweetener, in multiple contexts) by taste. Far from nearly impossible.

They taste completely different to me. (Both Diet Coke and Coke Zero.) Admittedly, I haven't tried the apparent new formula you mentioned, though.

I've never had any drink with an artificial sweetener that I've enjoyed the taste of, and I've tried a ton of different ones. I now just choose between sugary drinks or water based on if I want to treat myself or not.

I could certainly easily tell the difference between the first iteration of Coke Zero and regular Coke but the new formula (I just googled and it looks like they changed it last year https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/business/coke-zero-change...) is very similar to regular Coke.

I'm someone who likes good food and can usually identify most of the spices and ingredients in a meal by taste and smell, but for whatever reason, to me, Coke Zero is almost identical to the real deal.

I'm a bit surprised by the reaction here because I had incidentally just talked about it with some co-workers the other day and we were all on the same page about the minimal taste difference.

Enough people already have told you that you are clearly wrong, but I'm just curious at how did you arrive at such conclusion. Could you please tell honestly, if you actually did try both and you really cannot tell the difference, or is it something you've just said offhandedly?

(By the way, I know quite a few people who, according to their words, actually prefer the taste of Coca-Cola Zero. I personally cannot say that I like one more than the other, even though the taste is obviously different. So I'm surprised by how it is almost unanimously assumed in this thread to be bad-tasting.)

>So I'm surprised by how it is almost unanimously assumed to be bad-tasting.

I'm one of the people who finds Diet Coke and Coke Zero terrible-tasting. Do you enjoy the taste of any other artificially sweetened drinks, out of curiosity? I wonder if some people just have a trait that makes any non-sugar sweeteners taste awful to them.

Aspartame, stevia, monk fruit, and sucralose all taste truly gross to me. Like, gross in a weird, chemical-y way nothing else I've ever tasted does. Very distinctly, particularly, and strangely gross.

All real sugars taste great to me, though. If it weren't so unhealthy, I'd probably consume lots of sugary foods almost every day.

It's likely more fine grained than artificial sweeteners. Diet coke, which I'm not sure I can get around here anymore, tastes really awful to me. Regular Coke vs Coke Zero I don't have any taster preferences between them. Pepsi Max is what I drink mostly, and the regular Pepsi now tastes too sweet and weird to me.

> Do you enjoy the taste of any other artificially sweetened drinks, out of curiosity?

Well, first off, I don't like Coca-Cola that much for that matter (which I assume you mean by "Coke"). I just find both Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero perfectly drinkable and occasionally I feel like drinking one or the other. I never really drink "Diet Coke", since while "Coke" and "Coke Zero" are just 2 clearly distinct drinks, "Diet Coke" is something weirdly in between. Not gross, but meaningless and less enjoyable than any of them.

That being said, Coca-Cola is one of the least interesting and most bland colas out there. I would prefer "Fever-Tree's Cola", or "Jarritos Mexican Cola" or half a dozen of another colas over the one you probably mean by "Coke". So it's kinda silly to me to compare another drink (Coca-Cola Zero) to it as if it was some Holy-Grail of colas. It's just a mediocre drink, not amazing, not disgusting. And so is Coca-Cola Zero.

I cannot right now remember vividly enough the tastes of other drinks that might have been artificially sweetened, so I cannot answer your question directly. I don't like the taste of aspartame on its own, I don't use it at home, but I don't remember which off-the-shelf drinks contain it. Sucralose is better, protein powders are often sweetened by it, but it all depends on how much of it do they contain. I specifically checked right now 2 brands of which I remember one being horribly sweet, and the other quite nice: both have just sucralose as a sweetener, but they taste vastly different. On the other hand, Nocco drinks also are sucralose, they aren't too sweet, but I don't find them very pleasant to drink.

I cannot remember how stevia tastes (I guess I must have tasted it, but I cannot remember when or where), and it's possibly the first time I hear of "monk fruit". I'll try them out, I guess.

So, TL;DR: the particular sweetener doesn't define the taste of the whole drink, it really depends if I will like it or not.

>So, TL;DR: the particular sweetener doesn't define the taste of the whole drink, it really depends if I will like it or not.

To me, artificial sweeteners instantly overpower the taste of anything I drink. I'm not a big fan of (regular) Coca-Cola, either, but no matter the drink, artificial sweeteners just ruin the whole experience. Compared to anything with an artificial sweetener, Coca-Cola might as well be the best thing ever.

> So I'm surprised by how it is almost unanimously assumed in this thread to be bad-tasting.

It's all the after taste, for me. If I sip a diet soda, there's about one full second when I can't tell the difference—then I really can, and the unpleasant-to-me flavor lingers, quite strong, for minutes. Tastes like... I dunno, like I chewed up and swallowed a mild licorice with a thin coating of something that's definitely not food. Maybe some kind of plastic or household cleaning product.

I dunno, I switched to Coke Zero years ago and normal "full fat coke" now tastes sickly syrupy. I don't think it's strictly speaking the taste so much as the texture but it's very difficult to drink normal coke now.

(Of course, Coke Zero seems to no longer be a thing at least in Australia, we now have No Sugar Coke which is different and IMO not quite as nice but that's what we get.)

I'm my wife's "did I accidentally get non-diet?" test-taster. Now, that fact that she needs one supports your assertion. The fact that it is really easy for me to tell the difference, does not. The aftertaste lasts tens of minutes and isn't subtle (or pleasant). The most recent one I had to suffer was indeed Coke Zero (or "Coke" [small print: "Zero Sugar"] as they're rebranding it for some unfathomable reason).

Maybe it's the reverse, and people who are used to artificial sweeteners have trouble telling whether something's real sugar? I've never been a diet soda drinker, so maybe that's why I can detect it easily.

Or maybe I missed my calling as a soda super-taster. I can also tell several major brands apart by smell; back when I was a major soda drinker I'm 100% sure I could have labeled at least four Dr. Pepper knock-offs in a blind taste test; and find the "Pepsi challenge" literally incredible, as in I can't believe the outcome is real because they're so obviously different.

Much better would be to only have real sugar and reduce the actually content of sugar. We adjust very quickly and if you don't eat/drink sugar for just one day, the next day you will be amazed by how sweet somethings taste.

I don't think it's that quick for most people, but of course it's all anecdotal until some sort of proper research is done.

It's possible, this is my personal experience not taking in any sugar for just one day.

In my case it takes a week of complete abstinence from sugars. After a week the sweet cravings stop, and it feels liberating. Funny thing is, the cravings come back after a few days of eating sugars daily. We have a built-in addiction to easy calories.

Diet soda tastes bad. Sort of like a raw eggwhite was added in there in terms of aftertaste. There is no way you could drink that and come out satisfied at the end, though perhaps that might help people to stop drinking soft drinks at all.

That's because of the sweeteners they use, aspartame and ace K. There are a lot of low calorie sweeteners that have a completely different flavor profile

I have not been able to find anything with sweeteners in it (of any kind) that doesn't taste bad.

I used to feel that way, but for me Coke Zero tricks my brain just enough not to notice. I don't drink it very often, but it's pretty indistinguishable for me otherwise.

My sweetener at home is erythritol, stevia and monk fruit together and it tastes pretty good

disclaimer: I like stevia, it doesn't taste "bitter" to me

I like the initial flavour of Stevia, but the aftertaste is bad. I'm not sure if I'd call it bitter - it's definitely offputting though.

> Diet soda tastes bad.

I believed that until I was in a relationship with a diabetic, and so we'd have Diet Coke in the fridge rather than regular. It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but you do.

My preferred option these days is to drink neither :)

In absolute terms I guess everyone could get used to a bad flavour with enough exposure (something I theorise happens with beer, as it's actually disgusting. You just learn to drink it), but why would you? It doesn't make sense with beer and it doesn't make sense with sweeteners.

Subjectively, yes it does. But guess what - if you switch to diet, after a while (a while being something like a year) you'll end up thinking the regular Coke is bitter or otherwise off.

Quite a few things are acquired tastes. We like coffee and beer, after all, and both taste vile by default.

How easy it is to switch to diet depends a bit on how much you drink. For a time I was drinking a bunch of coke, so switching to diet was initially very rough, but also went quickly, maybe a couple weeks. Having free access to diet coke at work sped things along.

Now if I drink regular US coke (the HFCS kind) it feels like I'm drinking syrup, and my mouth feels like it's coated in glue.

Worse, diet soda can trick your body into releasing insulin to process glucose, but since there isn't any glucose, you glucose level falls off, or you develop insulin resistance. It's better to drink less regular soda than a lot of diet soda.

Pepsi did this in Finland. They added artificial sweeteners to their sugar version without any warning.

After a few weeks of intense bowel issues I re-read the label and figured out the reason. Now I'm drinking Coke again.

Is is often the case... [in mice]

The team anesthetized mice, perfused sucrose or sucralose directly into their guts, and then analyzed the response of neurons that make up the vagus nerve using calcium imaging. On average, 40.7 percent responded to sucrose only, 22.2 percent to sucralose only, and the remainder to neither stimulus, explaining how the vagus nerve is able to react differently to the two substances.

Ok, we've inmiced the title.

I just did keto and was shocked at how much I liked eritythol but we’ve still got a ways to go

So this is potentially support for all the parents who say sugar causes behavior changes in their kids right? Another win for trusting anecdotal evidence you personally observe over the ivory tower “we have no evidence that…” as a way to live because biology at least is very complex.

That is WW2 propaganda used to justify sugar rationing. The behavior changes are a learned response because their parents have trained them that acting up is an expected outcome from sugar consumption.

Do you have any kids? It was obvious that mangoes and apples were causing our toddler to bounce off the walls.

That's hogwash. They are just kids.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324896

to the downvoters: sugar rush is a myth. If you want to believe in food astrology you're free to do so, but you're WRONG.

I think you might be selectively sampling things. I.e. you notice when your toddler is hyperactive after eating fruits but not when he or she is hyperactive after eating other foods.

When it comes to a sugar rush, potatoes, rice, and corn have a significantly higher glycemic index than oranges, apples, and mangos (potatoes are about twice as high). This means that potatoes and corn will more quickly spike your toddler's blood sugar levels quicker and to higher levels. Does your toddler get more hyperactive after eating potatoes or rice or corn?

Hypothesis:

It may not have anything to do with blood sugar. The effects are usually too immediate for any sugar digestive action to have occured besides actual mastication.

I have kids, and my experience perfectly matches the empirics on this one: There is no such thing as a sugar high. You may just have a wrong perfection of the "normal" state of you kid. The "hyperactive" version of your kid is just the normal way your kid behaves. What you observe if the blood sugar level of your kid wanes is fatigue, nor calmness.

Edit: I can also see this with aquaintances who also believe in sugar highs: They only report this for the sugars perceived as worse than the "healthy" sugar sources, e.g. they project a sugar high if the kid gets a piece of cake, but not if it drinks 300ml of undiluted apple juice.

I*ve seen kids bounce off the walls because they were going to watch their favorite movie, too. Or get to play a game. Or... Well, anything, really.

Isn't bouncing off walls just a thing kids do?

The opposite, sugar industry colluded for decades to cover up its harmful effects.

Since 4 months old, our son bounced off the walls when given sugary fruits like banana and orange. With a mood crash an hour or two later.

I do not mean to invalidate your experience, but generally speaking it seems like both no and yes to sugar rush/sugar crash.

"Double-blind trials have shown no difference in behavior between children given sugar-full or sugar-free diets, even in studies specifically looking at children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or those considered sensitive to sugar. A 2019 meta-analysis found no positive effect of sugar consumption on mood but did find an association with lower alertness and increased fatigue within an hour of consumption, known as a sugar crash." [0] [1] (emphasis mine)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#... (yes, I know.) [1] http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/115618/1/WRAP-Sugar-rush-crash-met...

Sounds like typical spike-and-crash style diabetic response to me.

Yes, I am diabetic.

That was my thought exactly though with younger kids this can be less simple due to size and response times of different parts of the digestive system. Though raising the blood sugar levels of non diabetic even by a few mmol/l can have significant effect where diabetics can have far larger swings an notice it less.

TBH, I don’t notice when my blood sugar is high. I only notice it when I crash. That’s why I’m trying to get better about using a CGM to keep a closer eye on my blood sugar, even though I’m not on insulin. My hope is that the CGM can help me notice patterns in my diet that I can then change, so that hopefully I never end up needing insulin. But this is a work in progress.

You gave a 4 month old sugary fruits? I thought you have to wait for 6mo for dietary diversification.

You wait as long as seems reasonable for you. It's your child after all, they're all different.

It can be true that it was WWII propaganda and a learned behavior exacerbated by parents signaling and there is a biological reaction to sugar. I don’t have kids so just know what I hear, but if sugar is affecting the vagus nerve that could affect behavior.

As many studies clearly point it the opposite direction, isn't it way more probable that parents whish for their kids to be more calm than their default state actually is? Kids are usually pretty active and in demand of attention, while parents of young kids are usually sleep deprived and stressed out. The energy level of your average satiated toddler simply is staggeringly high.

We know from practically every field of human behaviour that even experts, when not guided by strict predefined rules, are simply unable to objectively assess social situations. E.G. in educationals settings, even experienced teachers sensitized for the topic are usually unable to correctly observe how their praise-punishment ratio is or the ratio of interacting with boys/girls or with loud and quiet students.

It simply isn't reasonable to assume that parents, completely untrained in objectively evaluating these kinds of settings, assess the effects of sugar consumption correctly.

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