Sweet news on hunger suppression....

Sweet news on hunger suppression ...

Remember when mom told you to steer clear of sweets before dinner so you wouldn't spoil your appetite? Well, a new study indicates it's not sweetness that suppresses appetite, but rather the specific sweetener consumed. This finding suggests that sweet-toothed dieters hoping to curb their hunger might do well to choose snacks sugared with one sweetener, while children might save room for mom's chicken and vegetables by sticking to snacks sweetened with another.

Judith Rodin of Yale University compared the hunger-curbing abilities of plain water and three lemonade-flavored drinks containing different sweeteners. She randomly assigned each of 24 men and women, aged 22 to 50, to drink 16.9 ounces of one of the four drinks, served at room temperature. About 40 minutes later, participants selected lunch from a buffet and were told to eat until "comfortably full." Several times over the next few months, each diner returned to down one of the remaining drinks before lunching from the same buffet.

Most subjects ate about as many calories after downing noncaloric, aspartame-sweetened lemonade as they did after drinking plain water, Rodin reports in the March AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION. After drinking lemonade sweetened with 200 calories' worth of glucose, they usually consumed about 10 to 15 percent fewer calories. But the most dramatic appetite suppression followed consumption of the drink sweetened with fructose (fruit sugar). The 20 to 40 percent fewer calories generally eaten after drinking fructose far more than compensated for the 200 calories each fructose drink contained. Earlier studies by Rodin indicate that the appetite suppression seen in the new study may be triggered by a fructose snack consumed even 2-1/2 hours before mealtime.

The fructose-sweetened drink appeared to offer a second healthful dividend: It somehow led subjects to select meals with significantly less fat, Rodin says.