Sugar Isn't Addictive: New Research Changes What We Thought About Sweets

A six-month study of 180 adults showed that consuming more or less sweet foods did not change preferences for sweet flavors, nor did it affect appetite, weight, or health markers. This challenges the idea that reducing sweet consumption reduces sugar cravings. Dietary recommendations should focus on more effective strategies, such as reducing portions and choosing lower-calorie foods, rather than simply avoiding sweet flavors.

For a long time, it was believed that the more sweet foods we ate, the greater our desire to continue eating sweets, and that, conversely, avoiding sweets would help reduce these cravings. This idea underlies many public health recommendations that encourage reducing sweet food consumption, with the goal of helping with weight control and preventing diseases like diabetes.

But a recent study, conducted by researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, surprisingly challenges this assumption. The study followed 180 healthy adults over six months.

Participants were randomly divided into three groups: one with a diet rich in sweet foods, another with a moderate amount (considered an average diet), and a third with low exposure to sweetness, all receiving half of their daily food intake through packages delivered every two weeks.

These foods included both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened products, as well as foods without a sweet taste. During the study, participants were free to eat as much of the food as they wanted, and they also received daily dietary guidelines.

Researchers classified the foods used in the study based on their level of sweetness, using data from a previous study that assessed the flavor intensity of approximately 500 foods common in the Dutch diet.

Foods considered sweet included items such as jams, milk chocolate, sweetened dairy products, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Foods without a sweet taste included items such as ham, cheese, peanut butter, hummus, salted popcorn, and sparkling water. The idea was to offer a variety of foods that represented different levels of sweetness, ensuring that participants consumed a realistic but controlled diet.

To assess the impact of these diets, researchers tested individual preferences for sweet flavors before the intervention, during (at two time points), immediately after the end of the diet, and also one and four months later, when participants had resumed eating freely.

In addition to taste preferences, detailed data were collected on energy intake, macronutrient consumption, as well as health measures such as body weight, body composition, and blood tests related to the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, such as glucose, insulin, and cholesterol.

To ensure fair comparisons, all groups received foods with similar carbohydrate, fat, and protein compositions, and participants were evenly distributed by sex, age, and body weight.

The key difference between this study and others is that it lasted six months and analyzed a variety of factors: preference for sweet flavors, perception of sweet taste, body weight, energy intake, and health markers such as glucose, insulin, and cholesterol levels. Furthermore, to accurately measure sweet tooth, scientists used foods specially created for sensory testing, separate from those consumed during the diet.

The result? After six months, there was no significant change in participants' preference for sweet flavors, food choices, or how much they ate, regardless of the amount of sweets in their diet.

Even the group that consumed more sweet foods showed no increase in sugar cravings. And, equally important, no significant changes were found in participants' weight or in their tests for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Another interesting point: one month and four months after the end of the study, when participants returned to their usual diet, all naturally returned to the same levels of sweet food consumption they had before the intervention.

This suggests that, at least in adults, the taste for sweets is relatively stable and little influenced by the amount of sweets consumed daily, contrary to what was previously believed.

The researchers emphasize that healthy eating guidelines should therefore be based on proven strategies, such as reducing portion sizes, choosing foods with fewer calories per gram (lower energy density), and avoiding sugary drinks, rather than simply avoiding sweet-tasting foods.

They also emphasized that future research steps could involve children, who are still developing their food preferences and may react differently to prolonged exposure to sweet flavors.

In short, the study shows that it is not the sweet taste itself that leads to excess calorie consumption. Eating sweet foods does not automatically increase the desire for more sugar, and avoiding them does not reduce this desire.

Food decisions appear to be much more complex than that, and the solution to healthier eating may lie more in the overall quality and balance of the diet than in eliminating specific flavors.

READ MORE:

The Sweet Tooth Trial: Effect of Low or High Dietary Sweet Taste Exposure on SweetTaste Liking, Perception and Body Weight in Healthy Adults

Eva Cad, Monica Mars, Merel van der Kruijssen, Claudia Tang, Hanne de Jong, Michiel Balvers, Katherine Appleton, Kees de Graaf, and Katherine Appleton

NUTRITION 2025

Abstract: 

Health organizations recommend lowering the consumption of sweet-tasting foods; assuming that lower exposure to sweet foods lowers preferences for sweet-tasting foods, decreasing sugar and energy intake, and aiding in obesity prevention. However, empirical data supporting this narrative are lacking; this study assesses the effect of a 6-month low regular, and high dietary sweetness exposure on preference for sweet foods and beverages. A total of 180 healthy adults participated in 6-month parallel randomized dietarytrial with 3 intervention groups: Low (recommended intake), Regular (average intake), or High dietarySweetness Exposure (upper quartile of intake). Intervention foods were provided, ad libitum, covering 50% of daily food items, including sugar-sweetened, low-calorie-sweetener-sweetened and non-sweet tasting foods. Sweet taste preferences and other behavioral measures and several health outcomes, such as body weight and biomarkers for diabetes and CVD were measured. [clinicaltrials.gov NCT04497974]. Preliminary results show that despite lower exposure to sweet-tasting foods-supported by sweetener biomarkers in urine this does not lead to shifts in sweet taste preferences, changes in sweet taste perception, changes in food choice, or energy intake. Also, an increased exposure to sweet-tasting foods did not lead to an increased preference for sweet foods or other behavioral outcomes. Also, no effects were observed on body weight and biomarkers for diabetes and CVD. After intervention, subjects spontaneously returned to baseline levels of sweet food intake at 1 and 4 months follow-up. High or low exposure to sweet-tasting foods for 6 months did not change sweet taste preferences, nor did it impact other behavioral or health outcomes. Our findings do not support the belief that changing sweet taste exposure affects sweet preferences. More importantly, it suggests that it is unlikely that advice to reduce the exposure to, or intake of, sweet-tasting foods prevents excess energy intake. Dietary recommendations should therefore focus on evidence-based strategies, such as reducing energy density, limiting portion sizes, and avoiding foods with a high energy intake rate such as sugar-sweetened beverages. TKI Top Sector Agri & Food scheme for public-private partnerships.