Intuitively, people choose non-caloric
artificial sweeteners over sugar to lose or
maintain weight. Sugar provides a large
amount of rapidly absorbable carbohydrates,
leading to excessive energy intake, weight
gain, and metabolic syndrome [15,16,17].
Sugar and other caloric sweeteners such as
high fructose corn syrup have been cast as
the main culprits of the obesity epidemic.
Whether due to a successful marketing effort
on the part of the diet beverage industry or
not, the weight conscious public often consider
artificial sweeteners “health food” [